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Without further ado, I am happy to announce the start of FQXi's 2013 Essay Contest!

Our new topic:

It From Bit or Bit From It?

The past century in fundamental physics has shown a steady progression away from thinking about physics, at its deepest level, as a description of material objects and their interactions, and towards physics as a description of the evolution of information about and in the physical world. Moreover, recent years have shown an explosion of interest at the nexus of physics and information, driven by the "information age" in which we live, and more importantly by developments in quantum information theory and computer science.

We must ask the question, though, is information truly fundamental or not? Can we realize John Wheeler's dream, or is it unattainable? We ask: "It From Bit or Bit From It?"

Possible topics or sub-questions include, but are not limited to:

What IS information? What is its relation to "Reality"?

How does nature (the universe and the things therein) "store" and "process" information?

How does understanding information help us understand physics, and vice-versa?

------

I couldn't write a better introduction to the contest than FQXi Member George Musser, over at the site of our contest partner Scientific American. As George puts it, "Going to a physics conference these days is like landing in The Village of the old TV series The Prisoner, where all anyone talks about is information." Well, now is the time to break out and join us for the discussion here at FQXi.

You can find out more including official rules and entry information at this link. There, you'll also find links to our previous contest entries, including our previous contest Questioning the Foundations.

I already wrote my "it from bit" essay in the last competition and it got no attention. Though I welcome the choice of topic, I'm a little amused at the presentation, as if information theory has suddenly emerged as the "hot" subject. If one follows the trends in interdisciplinary science, one knows that for at least 20 years, conference papers and proceedings volumes have been chock full of information theory. The Santa Fe Institute published *Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information* (edited by W.H. Zurek) in 1990. New England Complex Systems Institute has also published leading edge research in the field for about 15 years. Commercially, Springer has been a steadfastly supportive publisher.

I don't fault FQXi for catering to its membership; however, I have disabused myself of any notion that the organization is other than a conservative vehicle for science popularizers. While that's a good thing in itself, it doesn't really push any original research boundaries. On the other hand, I've seen talented science writers like Merali, Orem and Dickau raise important questions from this platform and thresh some pretty high quality wheat from the chaff -- so it's well worth the participation. Just my two cents.

There is flexibility here that exceeds the examples you gave. Here one does not have to adhere to the severe limitations of either mechanical ideologies or political ideologies in order to have their work included. No great leader complex along with its inevitable reliance on censorship.

Here it is proper that experts evaluate the work. Here the variety of experts bring a variety of viewpoints by which to judge other's work. That and repitition and time will tell. I thought your essay was great, but, you haven't written the final essay on It from Bit. No one has written the final essay on anything. Repitition and development are inescable. I consider It from Bit to be inadequate. I think you have demonstrated amazing talent. But, where is the essay that establishes intelligence rather than assumes it. Where is the essay that removes the fog of complexity as fundamental rather than relies upon it.

Ok, I have drifted into preaching my point of view. Yours is different but I look forward eagerly to reading another presentation of your viewpoint.

This looks to be intended from a mechanical point of view. Mechanics is the lowest form of useful interpretation for the universe. However, it is necessary to go along with it in order to fit oneself into the scientific shoebox we are presently confined to.

I speak of and make use of a single mechanical cause for all mechanical effects. The existence of such a cause does not rely upon proving the existence of a naked singularity. Rather it relies upon demonstrating unity from beginning to end with that unity always present throughout development of theory. In other words, removal of the opportunity for theorists to introduce after-the-beginning theoretical miracles. The naked singularity idea comes from theory that does not follow this path of development.

The original miracle remains unexplained let alone defined as a single naked singularity. The original miracle requires only that it provide for all effects that ever occur in the universe. It is the cause and no one knows what cause is. It requires that there be no other causes added on. So, I write about the benefits of developing theory, for now just mechanical theory, that demonstrates always present fundamental unity for all mechanical effects.

I consider reliance upon the fog-of-complexity to be a cover to mask the existence of lack of answers.

I guess I'll leave it at that. Wrong forum for this. Besides, I recognize that you have present science on your side.

There is no denying the existence of activity. My concern is not one of shoebox restriction on learning that activity. The shoebox restriction is the mechanical interpretation imposed upon that activity. The activity of the mind finds meaning in the 'photon storm'. The mechanical interpretation of photons along with the mechanical interpretation of the activity of the mind does not explain the existence of meaning.

Regarding: "the mechanical interpretation of the activity of the mind does not explain the existence of meaning."

I am of the opinion that the mechanical response (mental behaviors) to sensory inputs, is the only thing that does have meaning. The mind associates behaviors with sensory inputs. These behaviors *are* the meaning; if it did not mean anything, then presumably, one would not respond to it. The explanation for the existence of meaning, is merely this; it is more useful, than not, to behave, when one's continued existence may depend upon such behaviors.

In other words, "actions", tied to "observations", constitute meaning. The "actions" are based upon simple hypotheses about the consequences of failing to act, given the observations; fight or flee, but don't just sit there.

I have no dispute with the fact that meaning exists or that it is a plus. My dispute is with the claim that mechanical theory can give rise to the existence of meaning. Rob, I have essays, one of which is included in an essay contest here, that explain my position. My position is in opposition to what I understand your explanation to be in your message. I did not see an answer in that message. This will have to be moved to another forum, my own I guess.

I congratulate you and the FQXI team for choosing another excellent topic - I look forward to writing my essay and joining the discussion fray! I am a bit alarmed to see that unfairly reserving most (all?) the first selection of 40 winning essays to fqxi members seems as if designed to keep out 'newcomers' from ever entering the charmed circle! No matter it will be fun, and useful.

The automatic Member finalists must leave at least 5 comments or questions, which means having some involvement with the competition over and above just submitting an essay. That's an improvement. I hope it does encourage their active participation and not just just cursory comments.I think it would have been nice to reserve a few finalist spots especially for non members but I suppose some drastic action was needed to prevent too many hopefuls entering.

Looking at the big picture, it's not such a bad thing. You have academic hothouse inbreeding among multiverses, string theory, inflation, wormholes, blocktime, etc. and yes, you do get intellectual degradation, but for those of us looking for an actual revolution, that is a good thing. Give them all the rope they want. Or maybe I should say, string.

As you said, it is in the nature of the beast - rather the fowl - birds of a feather will flock together. While most of us are grateful to fqXi for the platform it provides for our learning and communicating, it disappoints that it is treading a relatively tame and cautious path. It is not for physics today what the Salon des Refusés was for the to the 19th. painters who initiated the impressionist revolution in art. As physics has become today, the officially approved art had then stultified into refining and regurgitating long-dead styles.

Fortunately, and however much they need it, revolutionary physicists like Eric Reiter do not need to win prize money, however useful the financial support and publicity would be, in order to pursue their groundbreaking researches against all odds.

It is a pattern and patterns yield predictions. We seem to be in the theoretic parabolic stage, where any extension of current theory, by those accepted as experts, no matter how outlandish or untestable, is acceptable, yet efforts to point out linear projections overlook counter-balancing effects and bring theory back to earth are to be considered "naive" by the cognoscenti. Like a rocket, it will continue on its journey, until it runs out of fuel and comes tumbling back down again.

So the question is as to what fuels it? In this day it would seem to be media attention. Would Brian Green go on about multiverses if we was seriously questioned by the media? Now the media is in a feedback loop, as in politics, where they have access because they project authority, rather than question it. So the larger system promotes believers and demotes skeptics. When does that bubble pop? Given the tendency to treat any adverse observation as a career opportunity to build a patch, it will have to become so outlandishly nonsensical that the audience finally starts laughing. It wasn't that the little boy said the emperor was naked, but that those around him listened.

You have described the physics scene colorfully and well, and it is disconcerting. It reads like something out of Pynchon, an author I recently discovered for myself.

>>>it will have to become so outlandishly nonsensical that the audience finally starts laughing>>>

But it has been outlandishly nonesensical, since Einstein's 1905 - and nobody dares laughs at him (nor should they, he was not out to fool anybody ...'those around him listened'). Four of his basic assumptions are either wrong or have led physics to a cul-de-sac - the point photon, the constant speed of light, the no-ether conclusion and spacetime distortion in GR all 'work' in a limited way, but are physically unrealistic and mutually incompatible, quite apart from the recognized incompatibility of GR and QM.

>>>So the question is as to what fuels it? >>>

I have convinced myself that a large part of the answer is "spiritual hunger". People need answers - life is intolerable without certainties about who we are, our place in nature and the meaning of it all. Physics is a new pop-religion!

Who needs mere eternal life if alternate versions of oneself are living it up in a myriad different ways simultaneously in other universes?

There are multitudes of alternate verions of oneself. We surround each other.

The problem with conventional theology is we anthropomorphise the spirit, yet, logically, a spiritual absolute would be like any other absolute; the basis. So a spiritual absolute is the essence from which life rises, not an ideal from which it fell.

Of course, being bottom up, it is always trying to reach further, yet blind to its own limitations. Just like physicists, theologists and other life forms.

The problem is that our limitations are what define our existence and thus tend to be too close to our very being to have much perspective on.

The want we hunger for is to be satisfied, yet that would only mean we accomplished our goals and would have to then set new ones. There is no ideal from which we fell and seek to return, only that essence from which we rose and will return.

I have read and enjoyed the wise and interesting responses of your last two posts some I agree with and some I need to think about some more - but perhaps our discussion has now veered too much from the subject of this forum for the comfort of other readers! I have started the outline of my essay for the Bit from It or It from Bit? contest - and find the subject leads to philosophical questions that you are obviously more comfortable with than I am. Will you be also writing an essay?

I plan on writing one, but haven't settled on a general theme. The topic offers a very broad range of approaches. While I will likely try to take a more general approach than most, I'll try not to make it too "philosophical," as that term tends to engender scorn. In my above comments, I think I made an entirely logical point about religious assumptions. Monotheism is quite...

I plan on writing one, but haven't settled on a general theme. The topic offers a very broad range of approaches. While I will likely try to take a more general approach than most, I'll try not to make it too "philosophical," as that term tends to engender scorn. In my above comments, I think I made an entirely logical point about religious assumptions. Monotheism is quite simplistically a top down approach, but life originating from a spiritual absolute would necessarily be a bottom up process, ie. evolutionary.

It was Pope John Paul 2 who described God as an "all-knowing absolute." So it is not "philosophical" to parse such comments. What is "philosophical " is the assumption that any observation that is not of a technical nature, or expressed in mathematical terms, is inherently vague and "philosophical."

By "philosophical," I mean observations based on beliefs and assumptions not entirely thought out or well developed. As in originating from one's own philosophy. I find many people here to have very strong opinions as to the nature of reality, but are only willing to examine reality from within the strictures of what they believe to be infallible. Such as Paul viewing time as a series of static moments, or Tom's view of the "fabric of spacetime" being a physically real property and not just relativistic measures of distance and duration under the influence of various effects, such as acceleration and gravity.

Are my views "philosophical?" I frequently make the observation, as an example of the inherent dynamic that creates time, that the earth isn't traveling the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but that tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.

Now is it philosophical to say, "tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates." Or is that a fairly basic observation of facts? Now if I were to say, "The earth travels the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow." I would be proposing a rather profoundly foundational mechanism, which cannot otherwise be detected, other then the fact that yesterday does seem to flow into today and will likely then move onto tomorrow, from the perspective of someone observing the sun from a particular location on this planet, somewhere between the arctic and antarctic circles.

Now I come into these discussions with the very clear view that philosophical assumptions, religious, political, economic, social, conceptual, etc. can be very misleading and actually dangerous. So if someone can actually show me where I am mistaken and not just denigrate my judgement, I would thank them, because it is not my desire to be right, but to find out what is right.

What is wrong with Einstein is summed up here. The joke, if you are looking for one, being that he did not have any observational light.

25 Einstein failed to differentiate reality from its light based representation. As the two were conflated there was no observational light. In other words, his definition of the second postulate is irrelevant, because that was not what...

What is wrong with Einstein is summed up here. The joke, if you are looking for one, being that he did not have any observational light.

25 Einstein failed to differentiate reality from its light based representation. As the two were conflated there was no observational light. In other words, his definition of the second postulate is irrelevant, because that was not what was deployed. In order to calibrate distance and duration he, correctly, used a constant, which he called light, but it was not light, just a constant. So the concept of a dichotomy around the constancy of the speed of observational light is non-existent, and the ensuing attempts to resolve it, pointless.

26 This mistake was counterbalanced by his failure to understand the reference for timing, following on from Poincaré’s flawed concept of simultaneity. So he invoked a superfluous ‘layer’ of time. In effect, Einstein shifted the time differential, which occurs with the receipt of light, to the other end of the physical process, by asserting it to be a characteristic of physical existence. That is manifest in his concept of relativity, which is wrong, as too are many of the assertions which stem from conflating reality with a light representation thereof. These revolve around attributing light, which is just a physically existent entity with a representational quality which enables sight, with an influence in the reality it is actually only representing which it does not have. This remains the most important failure to distinguish something from a representation of that something (ie information). The Copenhagen interpretation is another; while space-time is a model which contradicts how physical existence must be constituted (para 31 refers).

I think you know “what fuels it”. Apart from a genuine belief in their validity, there is intellectual investment, jobs, etc. As you hint, the definition of a religion is the belief in something that is non-existent. What causes it is the failure to understand what is being investigated, first, before invoking theories about it against no background. In the context of the current topic, that means not properly differentiating reality from information about reality.

Thanks John - the subject does need a philosophy of knowledge but I will try to bypass this much fought-over battleground.

Thanks Paul I see you have gone beyond dissecting the 'cold case' to pinpointing - if I understand you correctly - the real trouble with Einstein's world-view. I would summarize it as his placing himself- the observer - at the centre of the universe and twisting everything else to suit this perspective - would you agree?

Consider this as one, " the observer - at the centre of the universe."

This does raise a few questions. Does knowledge exist without some form of framing device? I have argued knowledge is inherently subjective. Not because of a particular bias, but because of the tendency of combined or multiple perspectives to result in a "white noise" effect. Now this doesn't mean one can't juggle and triangulate various frames in order to develop a better perspective, but without keeping that necessary reductionism in mind, we lose sight of the distortions and cannot adjust for them, resulting in flawed assumptions.

“I would summarize it as his placing himself- the observer - at the centre of the universe and twisting everything else to suit this perspective”

Good of you to remember my ‘cold case’ analogy. That is a way of putting it. There are no observers because there is no observational light, lightening, etc, will not do. The relativity of receipt of light became the...

“I would summarize it as his placing himself- the observer - at the centre of the universe and twisting everything else to suit this perspective”

Good of you to remember my ‘cold case’ analogy. That is a way of putting it. There are no observers because there is no observational light, lightening, etc, will not do. The relativity of receipt of light became the relativity of occurrence. The relevance to this essay subject (those were 2 paras from my submission) being that light is information, ie a representation of what occurred. I don’t ‘go on’ about Einstein in the essay. An earlier, but good enough, draft of all that is on my previous essay blog, or send me a link to paulwhatsit@msn.com.

“We have so far defined only an “A time” and a “B time.” We have not defined a common “time” for A and B, for the latter cannot be defined at all unless we establish by definition that the “time” required by light to travel from A to B equals the “time” it requires to travel from B to A. Let a ray of light start at the “A time” t(a) from A towards B, let it at the “B time” t(b) be reflected at B in the direction of A, and arrive again at A at the “A time” t(a). In accordance with definition the two clocks synchronize if t(b)-t(a)=t’(a)-t(b).”

In the context of a proper differentiation between reality and the light based representation thereof, this thinking is, essentially, correct. Recipients of light (ie observers) representing the same physical occurrence but in different relative spatial positions, will receive those lights (assuming for the sake of simplicity they all travel at the same speed) at different times. Comparing these times and relating it to the distances involved will reveal the time at which the occurrence happened.

But Einstein conflated reality and the light based representation of it, so he has no observational light. ‘Local time’ must be the time of receipt of the light based representation of an occurrence, but he deems it to be the time of the occurrence. At the ‘local’ level this mistake is rationalised with the notion that they are the same, ie if in the “immediate proximity”. Which is incorrect, as by definition, the existent occurrence and the existent observer are spatially distinct entities, and therefore there is always a distance difference, and therefore a time delay whilst light travels. Beyond the ‘immediate proximity’ (which could never be defined because it cannot be correct), he is effectively saying that the same occurrence happened at different times, which is ludicrous.

This mistake (which frankly is so obvious, I noticed it 40 years, but then put the book back on the basis that this is Einstein, therefore…and got on with Sociology!) is counterbalanced, and thereby disguised, by his use of Poincaré’s flawed concept of simultaneity. Which involves a failure to understand that timing devices only ‘tell’ the time, the reference for the timing system being a conceptual constant rate of change, which is why timing devices are synchronised, otherwise they are useless. So a spurious ‘layer’ of time was thought necessary (ie ‘common time), which compensates for the other mistake.

Another contributory factor to this confusion is the apparent involvement of observational light in Einstein, which does not actually occur. His use of something, which he calls light, is just as a constant, ie something which takes the same time to travel either way at consecutive times. This is not observational light. In all his examples there is only ever a dissasociated ray of light, or lightening, etc. There is reference to entities as observers, but there is nothing for them to observe. Indeed, when others try to explain the theory, the same happens. In Cox & Forshaw, a light beam is used as the clock mechanism, but again this is not observational light, just a constant which happens to be light. However, the presence of some form of light in the argument masks the flaw.

We have had this exchange before. What you need to understand is that we can only have knowledge of one particular form of existence, and that is determined by a physical process (so there is the potential for objectivity albeit within a closed system). And we can only have knowledge of/information about, ‘it’. We can never ‘have’ in any sense of the word, ‘it’. Even though this ‘it’ is possibly only one form of existence and may be not what is ‘really’ happening at all. But we can never know.

In other words, after millions of years and with no new knowledge arising, we can therefore deem that what we know is what ‘it’ is. Up to that point knowledge is the best representation of what ‘it’ is at that time.

You take an explicitly subjective form of knowledge and insist it must be objective, because there is no alternative. By your logic, an ant's perspective is objective, because it cannot know any other.

Ants likely haven't changed their views in hundreds of millions of years, yet the biological branch that is our own has garnered a more extensive understanding of reality. How can we be sure there are no distortions in our particular self-centric views?

It seems to me objectivity is like counting to infinity. There will always be more.

By the way, how can you seriously say, " after millions of years and with no new knowledge arising?"

What is your definition of knowledge, if we haven't gained any in the last several million years?

I was impressed at the time by your systematic 'interrogation' of Einstein 's variable 'cold case' statements. A compilation on what he said on various subjects : ether, speed of light, etc. would be useful. What you 'go on' now about observational light is very interesting and relevant. I look forward to reading your new essay; but as you know I have no gumption to engage in longer exchanges as John is so capably doing. Good luck to you both in the contest.

“You take an explicitly subjective form of knowledge and insist it must be objective”

Not so. There is only one form of existence which we can know, because we exist and cannot extricate ourselves from it. Except via beliefs, and of course we can have as many beliefs as we can conjure up, because there is no reference against which to judge their validity. Precisely...

“You take an explicitly subjective form of knowledge and insist it must be objective”

Not so. There is only one form of existence which we can know, because we exist and cannot extricate ourselves from it. Except via beliefs, and of course we can have as many beliefs as we can conjure up, because there is no reference against which to judge their validity. Precisely because beliefs are an attempt to know something which we cannot know. There is a physical process which underpins knowing. Once we understand it, we can adjust certain inputs received, because we know that they are ‘deficient’ in some way, and we can augment what we can directly receive by hypothesising what we could have received had there not been an identifiable problem. None of this being to do with creating beliefs, just working within the physical process within which we are trapped.

Now, whether what we can know is really correct or just a load of rubbish, is irrelevant, because we cannot know anything else. Physical existence, for us, can only be what we can potentially know.

“By the way, how can you seriously say, " after millions of years and with no new knowledge arising?" What is your definition of knowledge, if we haven't gained any in the last several million years?”

You do not seem to even read what I write. We can only have knowledge of, even the form of existence which we can know. We do not sense it, ie have some direct access to it which is incontrovertible. So knowledge is being built up on the basis of comparison of one input with another, and then which one ‘fits’ best. That is, there is no magic correct answer available against which to make the validity judgement. However, since what we can know is limited, see above, then after n years, and/or the lack of new input, we can then assume that that knowledge is the equivalent of the existence it is depicting. As opposed to defining it as ‘the best we have at this time’. This is all to do with generating an objective view from within a closed system.

Thanks. I realised it a long time ago, having crawled through all the narrative and examples, bloody trains, lightening, clouds, etc! But somehow I did not make it so overt. The whole trick here is, forget what he said his second postulate was, what did he actually do. c is not the speed of light, it is just a meaningless constant. I have about 300 pages of quotes (from all-Lorentz,etc) and commentary. But as per your comment about gumption, I got bored, and am currently having to do something far more useful anyway. Indeed you might notice I only post very early in the morning, as I do not sleep well, so this gives me something to do before I get on with real life.

"There is only one form of existence which we can know, because we exist and cannot extricate ourselves from it."

"we can adjust certain inputs received, because we know that they are ‘deficient’ in some way, and we can augment what we can directly receive by hypothesising what we could have received had there not been an identifiable problem."

" Physical existence, for us, can only be what we can potentially know."

"We can only have knowledge of, even the form of existence which we can know. We do not sense it, ie have some direct access to it which is incontrovertible. So knowledge is being built up on the basis of comparison of one input with another, and then which one ‘fits’ best."

Maybe we simply have different understandings the meaning of the words, but to my understanding, this is explicitly subjective. I do agree "there is no magic correct answer available." In fact I would argue such a "God's eye view," or any such form of "objective knowledge" is inherently contradictory. Information is the form of substance and when substance/energy interacts, it affects form. So information doesn't exist pinned to some four dimensional spacetime geometry, in which all events and thus information can objectively exist, but it is a constant process of creation and dispersion of such form and information. Like counting to infinity, That "all-knowing" objective knowledge is a contradiction. The uncertainty principle writ large.

Vladimir,

Thanks for the exchange. It serves to exercise my thoughts on the subject. Sometimes it seems repetitive, but sometimes there are details that only emerge with further examination, as arguments re-enforce, or dissolve through further consideration.

“Maybe we simply have different understandings the meaning of the words, but to my understanding, this is explicitly subjective”

It is not a matter of “different understandings”, within the context of a post, and given the number of posts, the meaning I attach to any given word is clear. Your “understanding”, which is not understanding in any normal meaning of the word, ie that this is “explicitly subjective”, is wrong. And obviously so. Because otherwise we should all go home and take up cookery or something, as there can be no science, because you are saying there are no facts. The issue is, not your incorrect stance that ‘everything is subjective’ but on what basis can something be objective within the circumstance of our existence.

“Information is the form of substance and when substance/energy interacts, it affects form…”

This is nonsense. Even if there is a form of information which is physically existent, which there is, it cannot affect what it is information of, because that has to have existed previously, by definition, so that information about it can exist. Can we please have some common sense here.

Being subjective is not synonymous with not being factual. My sitting at this computer is subjective, but is also real. It is not that there is no objective reality, but that our knowledge of it is necessarily subjective, because it can never be complete, so we cannot be sure there are no biases. If we simply assert our knowledge is objective because we cannot know the totality of all circumstance we encounter, then we have given up and only letting the shell of current knowledge grow calcified.

Knowledge is dynamically increasing, but then it is also an editing of other knowledge. Few of us could readily adapt to circumstances our ancestors endured, because we have lost the knowledge.

“our knowledge of it is necessarily subjective, because it can never be complete”

Yes it can. Because we exist in a limited form of existence. Neither is your point relevant anyway, as we all know that, especially in some areas, our knowledge is not complete. So really we should be saying ‘best known as at this time’ on every occasion. But this is not subjectivity in the proper sense of the word, ie a fundamentally incorrect depiction of a reality, or an assertion about something that is not even a reality.

“If we simply assert our knowledge is objective because we cannot know the totality of all circumstance we encounter, then we have given up”

But we can know the totality of the circumstance, for us. We can never ever know the totality of the circumstance, so that is irrelevant. We just have to accept that there is a logical possibility of an alternative, because we are trapped in what has to be presumed to be one possibility. And it is not a case of ‘asserting’, but proving, albeit within a closed system, ie despite best efforts, over a substantial time, no new knowledge arises. At which point we can safely say that our knowledge on that is the equivalent of ‘it’, rather than ‘it’s the best depiction we have at this time’.

Existence, as it is potentially knowable to us. That is, what is 'out there'(that includes us) which can be confirmed by detection, having eradicated the individualistic and/or generic influences of the sensory sytstem/brain processing, which converts physical input to perception of that. Or what can be confirmed by due process would have been detected had identifiable issues not prevented it.

It is the nature of the beast that with fundamental questions, we keep revisiting the same issues from multiple angles. Safe to say, this one has strong views from both sides and much contentious middle ground. It is a rather pockmarked battle ground.

"The past century in fundamental physics has shown a steady progression away from thinking about physics, at its deepest level, as a description of material objects and their interactions, and towards physics as a description of the evolution of information about and in the physical world."

That is, genuine physics is dead and physicists will have to extract career and money from surrogates. The previous contest, "Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?", was the last breath of the dying science. No basic physical assumptions proved wrong - everything is true and... dead.

I sort of agree with what you wrote if one understands that you are saying 'no basic physical assumptions proved wrong' in the eyes of FQXI judges. With that understanding, I agree. FQXI treated my 2012 essay as if an experiment means nothing. The experiment showed photons were wrong, the particle atom was not always correct, and the Born rule was violated. That means all the assumptions behind 'it from bit' arguments are severely challenged. Experiments mean something, and mine was the only essay based on detailed original experiment. Also, there were many other good essays last year with arguments that showed many fundamental assumptions are doubtful.

I am no sure they do in this context, but I had a window of opportunity (Easter break) and it is ridiculousy cold. My observation of entries was that the early ones got left behind as the momentum picked up. This is a function of site layout and how one sees the 'latest action' and then joins in. And part of that problem is the way the identification of potential winners is organised. Discussing points with other entrants has the virtue of causing you to explain yourself, etc. But that should be it. After that your entry should be judged on the submission and the subsequent points you have made which substantiate it. There should be no form of 'beauty parade' amongst the entrants, which basically just leads to this 'good essay, oh have you read mine' type comment. You might have noticed, I don't do politically correct or attempt to curry favour!

THE QUESTION ABOUT INFORMATION IS A PERFECT START - ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT THE BONN UNIVERSITY HAS FOUND THAT THIS ENTIRE UNIVERSE FITS INTO A COMPUTER SIMULATION, WHICH IS HOLOGRAPHICALLY MANIFEST HERE. THAT EVERYTHING THAT YOU SEE IS AN APPARITION MANIFEST HERE VIA LIGHT SHINNING THRU A 2-D DIFFUSION PATTERN. I.E. A PRODUCT OF CONSCIOUSNESS CREATING IMAGES ONLY.

THERE IS PLENTY OF OTHER EVIDENCE OF THIS - LIKE THE NINEVEH / WILCOCK GALACTIC CONSTANT, WHICH SHOWS THAT THIS GALAXY RUNS LIKE A SWISS WATCH - PERFECTLY.!!!

I am Ryoji Furui, an entrant of last contest. I would like to show my updated paper as attached file which include ideas from last contest. I would like to have any of feedback. And unfortunately I have no idea to complete an essay for this time but just have short answers for each question examples appearing below.

I hope this contest would be meaningful one again.

Thank you,

Ryoji Furui

------

1. What IS information?

Information can be termed by some definitions. In physics, all theories or experimental data or any past, present and future projects related physics can be information within general terms. On the other hand, there is a limited case used in physics with a pair of another word,"observer(s)". In this case, infomation is limited to observed events.

2. What is its relation to "Reality"?

Reality contains unobserved events.

3. How does nature (the universe and the things therein) "store" and "process" information?

When we observe nature, we "store" it in our memories, expressions or works. This "process" (quantized) is generated foundamentary by neuron firings in the term of biological science.

4. How does understanding information help us understand physics, and vice-versa?

As we get more or precise infomation, we understand physics more or precise, and vice-versa.

Haha - Paul - Watson, I have been living in Japan for the past 42 years. Gambatte Kudasai is used in different contexts most of which defy a precise English translation. "Do your best" is close enough. "Bon Courage" is another.

It is intelligent to choice automatically the members like finalist; this permit to increase the visibility of the contest (the visibility is for all), and it is intelligent the request of members comment (this request pull in the members in the contest blog).

I ever think that is not important to win the contest, but share our ideas in a increasingly wider blog.

Although the deadline for registration has passed, there are still places available and booking is possible if you email registration@dtmd.org.uk

I hope you will excuse me publicising the event here. It is not a commercial venture - far from it! - and I do think it is relevant. The emphasis at the workshop is on interdisciplinary conversations as part of our project exploring an interdisciplinary understanding of the nature of information.

David Chapman

Senior Lecturer in the Communication and Systems Department of The Open University, UK.

The Mysteries Of The Bermuda Triangle would have been a much better topic imo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzeJaGwVykw

Bruce Gernon's electronic fog experience is very relevant to Flight 19. The calculated speed of 2000mph is simply the speed of the lunar earth tide at this latitude. A dark matter 'rocking stone' embedded in the crust with a 2g graviton cone of influence could simply have flung the aircraft *and* surrounding pocket of air across the Florida Strait, causing the effects described.

[quote]

2- The lunar shadow moves faster than sound.

During a solar eclipse, the moon casts a shadow on the Earth, the surface speed of which is relative to the observer's position on Earth. Speed is slowest at the equator, where the shadow moves at 1,074 mph. Near the north pole, that speed can reach 5,000 mph. These speeds dwarf the speed of sound (768 mph). If shadows could actually make sounds, a solar eclipse would produce a sonic boom on earth.

I agree. Clearly, 'It from bit' is from the probability interpretation, the Born rule. That is what 'IT' is about, right? The Born rule was demolished by my many experiments outlined in my 2012 essay. The problem is that the FQXI judges acted as if my experiments never happened. They happened, and they will happen any time I or anyone wants to show it. So even the Bermuda Triangle would have been a better subject this year. People think that information can occur without energy, and I know why they think that way. 'It from Bit' is an act of desperation due to misunderstanding past experiments. The misunderstanding was due to interpreting past experiments through a narrow quantum mechanical polarized thought window. It is not hard to take any modern experiment, like quantum erasers, or any of it, and either point out the flaw in the experiment or show how to interpret the experiment with the loading theory, or even some other theory. Then one can argue that experiments of others do not draw the clear distinction. My experiments seem to be the only ones that clearly defy QM and therefore draw the required clear distinction. Evidently, FQXI judges do not care about arguments based on experiment. The essayists judging did seem to care because I came in #14 out of ~285, thank you.

Yours was a valiant effort, but it is not going to get anyone inside the circle to step outside it. Consider what all they have been willing to swallow in order to preserve the current model, as well as support their careers. If you can't be refuted, you can be ignored. Don't give up though. Nature lets us blow bubbles, but eventually they all pop.

Consider the point I keep making; That the basis of time is not a vector from past to future, no matter how you measure the interval, but is the changing configuration of the physical, that turns future into past. For example, ask yourself if it is more logical that the earth travels a fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow? Or that tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates?

If you find the second more reasonable, then time is an effect of action and not some mathematical basis for it, so there is no conceptual foundation for expanding space. No Big Bang, no Inflation, no blocktime, no wormholes, no dark energy. Redshift is not due to light traveling as a point particle that can only be redshifted by recession. Not to mention they assume a constant speed of light against which to measure this expanding space!!!!

No multiworlds either, as it is the actual collapse of probability that turns potential into actual, not moving along that vector of time from the actual to the probable.

The question is how to organize a broad theory from the many ideas questioning the current model and how to position it as a viable alternative, as people finally grow tired with the increasingly erratic and eventually unstable nature of the field.

Glad to see you here promoting your work. By all accounts, and through my experience of trying to communicate my ideas to the mainstream, it will take patient, unflagging effort to change people's minds. The premises by Einstein, Born and others upon which much of present theory is built, has to give way to a simpler set of assumptions nearer to how nature actually works.Your experiments described in unquantum.net proving the true nature of light quantum emission and absorption clearly defy the Born rule (probabilistic interpretation).

John,

I agree that "the changing configuration of the physical" is the basis of time. If so why complicate the picture by notions of 'future' and 'past'. The universe has this one state and it changes. As to "how to organize a broad theory from the many ideas questioning the current model" - I have presented an outline theory Beautiful Universe that needs a lot of development, but to my naive thinking its one or two premises can be the basis for such a new physics. I am currently trying to simulate the lattice interactions but it is daunting work for a person in my isolated situation.

A good question usually contains precise parameters already limiting and defining the answer. This question is too vague for it point to any specific path...

Secondly, the great/wide/important questions of the FQXI contests are always great/wide/important simply because they carry a serious philosophical overtone. Well, guess what. Any philosophical treatment or approach is, at FQXI, the first one to get shot like ducks in season. The power of philosophy is that of standing back for the big picture and the freedom to discuss avenues and approaches with a certain amount of rational to back it. The weakness of philosophy is that it is not a truth system; it can only deliver an opinion. Yet, many of these opinions have been at the basis of new headways in physics. Whenever a paths gets muddled or foggy, we go back to question our board of original assumptions (last contest). With luck, we get to modify or even knock off a few of these assumptions and start a new path based on the new vision.

I haven’t read Wheeler’s book. Anyone care to explain in a tweet of words what was Wheeler’s problem is with his “it”. (Carefull! Those menacing cursor diving in low flight above the “report post as inappropriate”)

Perhaps you will find helpful this excerpt from John Horgan's 1996 book *The End of Science.* One of my favorites -- a collection of interviews with prominent scientists. Though I disagree with Horgan's premise of "ironic science," his journalism is excellent and honest.

Thanks for the very rich reference. (I read the book years back and did not remember this part..I still have it :-).

I like in this excerpt the place where Wheeler says: "As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance." He does recognize the huge difference between knowledge and understanding! I like that.

To attain the ultimate theory may be impossible for science. Not so, I believe, for a structured philosophical truth system.

He said that we create our reality! I totally agree! Not the stuff it is made of, which has been around for billion years. We create in our minds shapes, forms colors, everything from a furiously agitated explosion of a single process (substance) motivated by the simplest logical operations.

This text gives me lots of ideas and I thank you again Tom for showing it to me.

The weakness of philosohpy is that it is a waste of time, because it is considering logical possibilities which we can never know. How we know is the function of a simple physical process. Which means we have to presume we are trapped in what might be only one form of existence, but at least we can know it. And that demonstrates the fallacy of the concept that reality is a function of the sensory systems/brain. That processing creates a perception of what was physically received, it does not alter the physical form of something. Understanding that process is not physics. We receive physical input, which is itself the result of a physical interaction with something else. Physics is about identifying those physical circumstances.

Quote: "Ours is therefore a participatory universe, in which according to John Wheeler, the observer can not be redacted out of the picture. Can information with its own built in subjectivity, come to the rescue as John Wheeler hopes, and shed more light on the mysteries of quantum mechanics?" from Information The New Language of Science by Hans Christian von Baeyer,2003

"I like in this excerpt the place where Wheeler says: "As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance." He does recognize the huge difference between knowledge and understanding! I like that."

I like it, too. In my last FQXi essay (which was devoted to Wheeler's conjecture of a participatory universe) I used the analogy of a Poincare disk to show that we can never reach the shore; the horizon lies always at infinity. Speaking philosophically, postmodern existentialism bemoans that dilemma; most physicists and mathematicians, however, find it informative.

Can someone please explain how a process which converts a physically existent input, if received, into a perception of that input, and not another form of physical existence, can have any physical influence?

Also, how, since we are part of existence, we can know, as opposed to just create beliefs about, anything that is extrinsic to the physical process which enables us to know.

That argument is like one that is used to support some modern art or modern classical music. 'Oh you just do not understand it'. When in actual fact, by any standard of reference, a lot of it is rubbish. Obviously, anybody can genuinely like anything, but they should not try to justify that in terms of 'unless you do you are deficient'.

No I don't. I don't think you are deficient in knowledge, Paul. I just think that your view of science is completely off the mark. When you hold "common sense" as a scientific standard -- and the literature clearly shows that what we know objectively is overwhelmingly counterintuitive -- you are living in a different world than scientists inhabit. It may be a world of common sense, but it doesn't approach the foundations of what underlies and creates that world. As Jacob Bronowski said, "All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses."

Let me try an impossible task: to motivate you to take seriously "it from bit" idea, but of course without taking bits themselves seriously.

Here is a simple question:

Why is it that all objects/processes in Nature fall into the structurally similar classes (of stars, galaxies, stones, trees, etc)? Of course, classes evolve as are all objects. Why has the Universe been organized that way, via classes, from the very beginning?

"Why is it that all objects/processes in Nature fall into the structurally similar classes (of stars, galaxies, stones, trees, etc)? Of course, classes evolve as are all objects. Why has the Universe been organized that way, via classes, from the very beginning?"

I think that the answer is:

Efficiency of purpose. Those limitations and those profound resulting objects, are evidence that the universe is controlled right from its beginning with all effects having been prescribed for. It occurs that way for the originally set purpose of maximizing the use of the genetic code. The purpose of the genetic code is to maximize the variety of life within the constraints of a limited code. The code has to be limited because it is confined by the existence of its originally set purpose. Purpose involves setting limits. The limits result from all effects being due to a single cause. A single cause, and the fundamental unity that it represents, is limited in its capabilities.

The organization of the mechanical aspects of the universe results from limitation of what is possible to result from a single original theoretical cause. Unity is the restriction that limits the kinds of varieties that are possible; while allowing for variations of kind within a limited number of types of effects. The types of effects are limited to a number that is possible in a fundamentally unified universe. Unity is confining, yet, purpose requires unity. Infinite possibilities without a limited number of classes are incompatible with purpose. Infinite variety is necessarily confined by finite classes so that the original purpose may be served.

She is a neuroanatomist who had a severe stroke in her left hemisphere. If you watch it, consider how she relates the functions of the left brain and right brain, to the relationship between bit and it. The raw input of energy from the present, vs. the linear organization of it. Early on she makes the observation about how reality is one big soup of energy and how the left brain organizes it. She says it is all just perfect and here. Basically, as Wheeler says, the answer must be in here somewhere, but questions and answers arise out of linear cause and effect, the functions of the left brain. If it is only the right brain, there is no answer, because there is no question. Thinking is a function of making distinctions and we have found, at the quantum level, there are no clear distinctions, no complete linear cause and effect. Just light bouncing around. When we apply our basic logical assumptions to fundamental realities, the resulting insights are difficult to write into clear and concise formalisms.

I did participate this year's contest. Interesting topic indeed. To me, particle physics has gone all wrong. Few fatal mistakes has created an enormous smoke screen between physics knowledge/understanding and the real truth of nature.

Maybe the biggest mistake is the outcome conclusion of synchrotron radiation. More on that in my essay ;) You can check it out already from my site (http://toebi.com/documents/FQXi_contest.pdf).

One answer is, it hasn't, this is our conceptualisation. Or another answer is, in any given existence (whatever that 'really' is) there are bound to be similarities of occurrence. Another answer is, taking your question as written, we can never know. But the most useful response is for somebody to explain the underlying processes involved which have resulted in this physical state.

What I am not following, is how this consideration facilitates a differentiation of 'it' from 'bit'.

First of all, the probability that all processes are neatly clustered into classes *by chance* is negligible: their structural similarity requires some informational guidance.

I have been working in Pattern Recognition since the middle of 1970s, and can tell you that classes are a miracle: there must be some generative informational mechanism (class representation) to guide the production of class elements (in a manner not unsimilar to the biological organisms). By the way, I'm planning to submit an essay on this topic.

To understand the issue better you have to see the new formal language (ETS). This is, I believe, the first 'informational' language. After it was developed, it took me several years to understand why it is indeed an informational formalism (since we haven't seen any).

I think the considerable power of Lev's research program often gets overlooked for lack of understanding of what constitutes a formal language, i.e., a computable schema.

The object class of things that are structurally similar, in fact, leads Lev and me to the same conclusion, that time is identical to information -- and information theory is where the "it & bit" premise originates. So if the varieties of bitmaps changing in time, i.e., crossing domain and energy boundaries, are self similar between domains, global self organization results in recognition between members of that class. (Lev does with his fundamental unit 'struct' what I have doing with the self organization of elements of the complex plane that are infinitely self similar.)

Recognition algorithms are not yet as sophisticated as they probably will be in the near future. However, they are hardly unknown to the mathematics and computer science community. A decade ago, before Perelman's proof felled the last domino in proving the Poincare Conjecture for S^3, at least two promising proof strategies (Dunwoody's and Rubinstein's, independently) employed recognition algorithms for the problem. Even today, I think a successful proof using those methods would be a welcome advance -- as well as pointing to a more general and intuitive -- maybe even simpler -- explanation of what topologists mean by "simply connected."

Really looking forward to reading Lev's essay, which is bound to address the true technical issues of getting it from bit.

This is not directed at anyone. Not looking for already obvious responses anyway. This is just in case there are readers that wonder about 'purpose':

The purpose of purpose is to produce order yeilding meaningful results. However, it appears to be unscientific to propose purpose. Order without purpose, seems to me to be an interesting scientific position. Order for free. Order without cause. Order for no purpose. I know now what real science is: Self-ordering order. It is good that magic should give us real science. Maybe mentioning magic' is too up-front. I see the good scientific position to be that science doesn't answer what first cause is. Science answers for what we can know about what we have. Yet, there is that nagging nuisance of predjudicial attitude that jumps forward in scientific conversations that: The first cause cannot be purpose.

The first cause must be purposeless: Proof for this is not needed. It must be so because the universe is mechanical. Yeh sure! Not looking for answers here. I have heard from the top notch scientists that the universe is mechanical. There are fundamental forces. There is energy. There are hidden resources sometimes as extra dimensions and sometimes as emergent properties. Seems strange that 'hidden' resources are the answer to why there cannot be purpose. Maybe the scientific position is actually that: Purpose needs to be hidden. It is unscientific to see purpose! Yeh sure.

I think I will write an essay establishing purpose in the unvierse. It is good that such unscientific essays have a chance to be accepted here. FQXi.org is serving a higher purpose.

I recall a scene from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's *Breakfast of Champions* where the protagonist is in a bar contemplating the alcohol in his drink -- made by yeasts consuming sugar and excreting alcohol as waste, until they drowned in their own excrement. The yeasts had a purpose. He was wondering if they were aware of it. If our purpose as human beings were to pollute the planet by consuming until we drown in our own waste, would you be okay with that?

It makes no sense to me, for the universe to have any other purpose than to simply be. Better yet, as Joy Christian suggests: to become.

I have heard that. I understand that the scientific position of reasonable rational, intelligent, earth grounded people is that: The purpose of being is to have no purpose. Yeh sure. Thats why purpose is so good for screening out unfits. Tom, you think that I don't know how hard life is? Don't pull that on me. Do you have some scientific basis that shows that horror cannot coexist in a universe with purpose? Perhaps you are thinking about religion. Is that maybe the case?

I think it is the word purpose which is the problem, since this implies some knowledge/consciousness, something which is controlling, or any other such phrase.

Now obviously, and I do not think (or indeed hope) this is your intent. We cannot know anything which is extrinsic to existence as is knowable to us. We can believe in whatever we can conceive of. So we cannot know why, or indeed what, existence 'really' is. Which might include some form of purpose in the ordinary meaning of the word.

In respect of the physical existence we are considering, the substance thereof certainly does not exhibit capabilities which could support purpose in the ordinary meaning of the word. However, there are, especially if the complexity, etc, of what is demonstrably manifest is reduced to generic types, a limited number of existent substances and existent processes. Which does not have to be imbued with some magical overtone. Any form of existence will have such. The point being that, superficially, ie in the way we conceive of it, this could look like purpose, especially over time. In other words, given the ‘basics’ the elements, galaxies, heat, light, animate entities, etc, etc, were all bound to occur, but this is not purpose. Put the other way around, existence, of itself, precludes indefiniteness, anarchy, etc because there must be something and there must be a cause, but this is not purpose.

"I understand that the scientific position of reasonable rational, intelligent, earth grounded people is that: The purpose of being is to have no purpose."

Exactly the opposite, James!! A rational universe assigns free will to all its elements, to create their own purpose. Jacob Bronowski, one of the deepest thinking humanists I know -- the one who wrote the aphorism I quote often, "All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses" -- lectured extensively on the intersection of science with human behavior and values. I think the awesome repsonsibility of our choice of purpose is reflected in many of his quotable quotes, including:

"Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created."

Your purpose and your free will come out of nothing. You take it for free and celebrate it as if you have accounted for its existence. Now back to my point. Did purpose exist for the origin of the universe? And in response to your point: What is the cause of free will?

You wrote, "Your purpose and your free will come out of nothing. You take it for free and celebrate it as if you have accounted for its existence."

Yes, I most certainly do! Would you rather I see my free will as something I must suffer and pay for? Sorry, that makes no sense to me.

"Now back to my point. Did purpose exist for the origin of the universe?"

It couldn't have, if all its elements are endowed with free will. The purpose of the universe is equal to the purpose of its creation. I agree with Wheeler in principle that ours is a participatory world.

"And in response to your point: What is the cause of free will?"

Free will *is itself* the cause of all that exists. There is no reason to believe that any particle lacks consciousness; we certainly could not say otherwise, merely by observing particle behavior. (See Kakatos and Nadeau, *The Conscious Universe* and Gell-Mann, *The Quark and the Jaguar* as well as Wheeler's research in "it from bit".)

you quoting me: "you wrote, "Perhaps it is necessary to stress that 'hidden' is not an answer. 'Hidden' is a magician's trick. I have no interest in 'magical' answers to scientific questions."

You: "What nonsense. Most every fact of nature that we know is hidden from our everyday view."

Nonsense huh? Yes cause is hidden from us. Effects are observed. No one knows what cause is. My questions were specific to you. Each time that you put forward an answer that does not go to the source, you have explained nothing. Your 'hidden' answers are a facade for pretending that the source has been identified though we can't see it. The closest you have come to lifting yourself up above the mechanical level is in your above message: "There is no reason to believe that any particle lacks consciousness; we certainly could not say otherwise, merely by observing particle behavior." but, you failed miserably with free will: "Free will *is itself* the cause of all that exists.". Where did you get your free will? Free will is a cause? Is this free will like electric charge or something or is it intelligent? I am assuming that you weren't thinking that it was a 'given'?

You quoting me: You wrote, "Your purpose and your free will come out of nothing. You take it for free and celebrate it as if you have accounted for its existence."

You: "Yes, I most certainly do! Would you rather I see my free will as something I must suffer and pay for? Sorry, that makes no sense to me."

This answer doesn't appear to have any relevance. What is with the "suffer and pay for"? Is that a theory?

You quoting me: "Now back to my point. Did purpose exist for the origin of the universe?"

You: It couldn't have, if all its elements are endowed with free will. The purpose of the universe is equal to the purpose of its creation. I agree with Wheeler in principle that ours is a participatory world."

Me: What is free will for all its elements?

You quoting me: "And in response to your point: What is the cause of free will?"

You: Free will *is itself* the cause of all that exists. There is no reason to believe that any particle lacks consciousness; we certainly could not say otherwise, merely by observing particle behavior. (See Kakatos and Nadeau, *The Conscious Universe* and Gell-Mann, *The Quark and the Jaguar* as well as Wheeler's research in "it from bit".)

Me: What consciousness does a particle have? Is it a given or are there properties in theoretical physics that form it?

I wrote: "Would you rather I see my free will as something I must suffer and pay for? Sorry, that makes no sense to me."

You replied: This answer doesn't appear to have any relevance. What is with the 'suffer and pay for'? Is that a theory?"

Huh? You don't think not-free is not the opposite of free? Or that what is not free requires payment, and therefore suffering in some sense? You really don't understand why your statement makes no sense to me?

You wrote: "What is free will for all its (nature's) elements?"

It means that all the elements are self organized on multiple scales.

You ask, "What consciousness does a particle have? Is it a given or are there properties in theoretical physics that form it?"

You: I wrote: "Would you rather I see my free will as something I must suffer and pay for? Sorry, that makes no sense to me."

You quoting me: "You replied: This answer doesn't appear to have any relevance. What is with the 'suffer and pay for'? Is that a theory?""

You: "Huh? You don't think not-free is not the opposite of free? Or that what is not free requires payment, and therefore suffering in some sense? You really don't understand why your statement makes no sense to me?"

I don't where this is going but it is clear it has nothing to do with explaining free will.

You quoting me: "You wrote: "What is free will for all its (nature's) elements?"

You: "It means that all the elements are self organized on multiple scales.'

Me: I see. Back to getting things for free. Of course matter organizes. The question is why does it organize? Where did that ability come from? Did the particles create their abilities or are those abilities to organize "givens'? If they are 'givens' what kind of givens are they? Are they the forces of theoretical physics?

You quoting me: You ask, "What consciousness does a particle have? Is it a given or are there properties in theoretical physics that form it?"

You: "It lies on a continuum from least conscious to most."

Me: And this is an answer? What is at the beginning of your continuum?

If I assume no free will, I trap myself in an infinte regress of who-created-what-and then-what-created that ...

With the assumption of free will (though I better like the way Gell-Mann envisioned it, as a continuum of consciousness) I have suffcient degrees of freedom operating on multiple scales to explain an apparently self-organized universe of self-similar objects and self-limiting dynamics. (This ties into Lev Goldfarb's ETS formalism.)

I will always concede to you that my assumption may be wrong -- that we may be robots with the illusion of free will. Like the yeasts consuming sugar until they drown in alcohol.

You have no beginning. Your circle is theory. We do have free will. The challenge is to explain how? The answer is not in theoretical physics. The answer is part of understanding the role of intelligence in the universe.

“If I assume no free will, I trap myself in an infinte regress of who-created-what-and then-what-created that ...With the assumption of free will (though I better like the way Gell-Mann envisioned it, as a continuum of consciousness)…”

It is not ‘free will’. It is that physical existence (which includes you) is independent of the mechanisms whereby those entities which possess those can be aware of it. The issue being that the input those mechanisms rely on delineates what form of existence is knowable, there might be alternatives but we can never know. Proper hypothesis, ie not belief, adheres to the same rules, so it cannot discern alternatives. This is the existential trap. We are in a closed system, determined by a physical process. So what we can potential know is therefore definitive, but independent.

The processing of physical input received is irrelevant, because that process is not a physical process. Therefore, ironically, you are correct with “we may be robots with the illusion of free will”. Indeed, more than that, all sentient organisms are a nuisance, because they invoke an unwanted influence on physical existence, in that they convert a physically existent entity into a perception thereof. In other words, any role that sentient organisms play needs to be eradicated first, obviously on the basis of an understanding as to how this subsequent processing works both individually and generically, before the physical circumstance can be, initially, revealed.

Not at all. You asked me if I thought free will is a belief. I said, it's an assumption that fits the facts. In your case, it *is* a personal belief -- if you feel a necessity to explain how free will gets to be free will, you deny the "free" part, which militates against the definition.

"The answer is not in theoretical physics. The answer is part of understanding the role of intelligence in the universe."

Intelligence is neither fundamental nor unitary. There are as many varieties of intelligence as there are creatures adapting to their changing environments.

"...if you feel a necessity to explain how free will gets to be free will, you deny the "free" part, which militates against the definition."

"Intelligence is neither fundamental nor unitary. There are as many varieties of intelligence as there are creatures adapting to their changing environments."

I assume you mean that the effects of intelligence are neither fundamental nor unitary.

The explanation for how is it that we have free-will does not involve denying the free part. It embraces and explains the free-part. Intelligence certainly is fundamental. The existence of the variety of the effects of intelligence doesn't negate intelligence being fundamental. Your repeated attempts to put the word 'self' forward as if it explains anything is futile. The ability to organize either exists in its entirety at the beginning of the universe or you are pugging in 'miracles' after the the universe begins. Either all effects that will ever occur in the universe were prescribed for at the beginning of the universe or 'miracles' are real.

Science should not tolerate the sneaking in of later miracles as part of explaining the nature of the universe. There cannot be high intelligence as an effect unless the cause, at its full potential, of high intelligence has always existed. The evolution of life and the varieties of life were prescribed from the beginning or they would not exist. The universe is orderly. The question is: How does free-will exist in an orderly universe? The answer lies in understanding how the universe uses intelligence. In order to understand how the universe uses intelligence, it is necessary to answer questions such as: How do we discern meaning in the 'photon storm'?

"I assume you mean that the effects of intelligence are neither fundamental nor unitary."

No, James, I meant what I said. The whole idea of intelligence is neither fundamental nor unitary.

"The explanation for how is it that we have free-will does not involve denying the free part. It embraces and explains the free-part."

Not when you have to pay for it with an explanation. "Free" rather justifies itself.

"Your repeated attempts to put the word 'self' forward as if it explains anything is futile. The ability to organize either exists in its entirety at the beginning of the universe or you are pugging in 'miracles' after the the universe begins."

Since self organization is an empirical phenomenon, once again you contradict your professed love for empirical facts.

"Either all effects that will ever occur in the universe were prescribed for at the beginning of the universe or 'miracles' are real."

Free will may be a miracle, I'll concede. I'm okay with that. I'm with Einstein: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

""Your repeated attempts to put the word 'self' forward as if it explains anything is futile. The ability to organize either exists in its entirety at the beginning of the universe or you are pugging in 'miracles' after the the universe begins.""

"Since self organization is an empirical phenomenon, once again you contradict your professed love for empirical facts."

I don't contradict myself. The limitation is not mine, it is yours. You are theoretical. Of course organization is an empirical phenomenon. Of course there are effects. Putting effects forward as if they prove your discovery of a 'demon-at-work' is not convincing. Yes I do adhere to emprical facts. I reject scientists' attempts to fantasize the universe. My empirical approach removes theoretical fantasies. Theory is invention to substitute for our lack of understanding of what cause is. Cause is not "self'. Effects are not cause. The removal of theoretical inventions is the freeing move. The removal of these inventions from physics equations restores physics to its natural state.

You have bought into theory. Physics theory requires masterly talents making use of complex abstract properties. You are very good at it. I do not retract my statement that I think you are ahead of the theorists. However, theory is invention. Theory is restricting. Physics should not be forced to model human ideas. You believe in theory. I don't.

The question of the existence of free-will is an important very interesting one. The universe is orderly. The mechanical view of theoretical physics is limited to usefulness in solving mechanical problems. The universe is not limited by the existence of theoretical physics. However, it is orderly to its fullest extent. The question of free-will is one of: How is free-will a part of a prescribed-for, orderly unverse?

There is no loss of freedom in this statement. It is a recognition of the existence of freedom. It is a question of the means by which freedom, in the form of free-will, is provided for by the universe. It doesn't occur out of mechanical uncertainty. We know that for human free-will because it is a decision process. It involves meaningful choices. All of this results from our intelligent processing of meaning discerned from the photon storm. Understanding how we discern meaning from the photon storm is the key to understanding information, intelligence, and free-will.

We are not going to end this, obviously, so you can have the last word. I will do as I said and write an essay about what is information and how it is used. I look forward to reading your essay. I expect that you can give a revised treatment of of this subject with superior theoretical quality. I think the expert evaluators might be sympathetic to your views if you are careful to present them with extra effort at clarity. Even experts may not be as adept as you are at seeing what you see. You may need to explain some of it along with saying it. Well anyway, good luck with it.

I have to say that you've opened my mind, through these exchanges, to a new way to characterize theory.

By your continually insisting that we don't get knowledge "for free" I see that theorizing is truly the price we pay for objective knowledge. A rationalist accepts the price, and strives for correspondence of the created work -- the theory -- with physical results, to gain knowledge. The price equals the gain.

And your paradoxically insisting that there is one cause for all observed effects, while rejecting free will as a cause -- reveals the irrational foundation of your quest. Think of it this way: Do you consciously control the automatic functions that sustain the life of your body? All those organs, cells and the chemistry that go on doing what keeps you alive are cooperating in their own interests, to produce what we truly are: a corporation of cooperating cells.

This view accentuates the richness of George Ellis' top-down causality, in which top down events influence bottom up functions. One can easily speculate that without that mutual feedback, the bottom elements are randomly free. Lev Goldfarb's formalization of this language of nature strikes me with the same power of recognition, that self similar classes are organized from randomly free agents.

You write, "Understanding how we discern meaning from the photon storm is the key to understanding information, intelligence, and free-will."

If free will is the cause, then meaning is freely created. The question for science is whether it's a rational meaning, because science is a rationalist enterprise.

That doesn't mean, however, that scientific (objective, rational) knowledge is all there is. I compare it to Godel incompleteness -- there exist true statements independent of those that can be proved in a formal axiomatic system.

What is free will? Is will devoid of influence truly will? If you are not influenced by your context, can you have influence over your context?

We don't make distinctions in order to decide, the function of decision is a consequence of those distinctions. When we come to the fork in the road and weigh the options, we don't then throw out that process and make the decision. Either we are in a situation where the multiplicity of options present the need to employ our functions of analysis and we are conscious of that process, or the decisions are so basic, it is in the category of routine. In either case, we don't follow the negative or closed circuit path, but the positive, open circuit path. To the extent the mind is a computer, life is the open circuit. This is not deterministic, even if the laws governing it are absolute, because the input into this process cannot be fully known before hand, as the signals would have to proceed themselves.

Which makes my point, John. The bottom up process that drives replication does not obviate the top down process that drives cooperation. How undifferentiated dividing cells in a mammalian fetus, e.g., "know" to become a skin cell, a blood cell, a liver cell, etc. is still not entirely understood.

Fascinating conversation. I congratulate you Tom in allowing your mind to open - at least to a new way to categorize theory, and also James for the cause of the effect I'd failed to achieve! There may be hope for us all yet.

Most impressive Tom was you; "A rationalist accepts the price, and strives for correspondence of the created work -- the theory -- with physical results, to gain knowledge. The price equals the gain."

Buy now you know what I'm going to mention. It's not just you Tom but universal; When a theory comes along which does just that, and clears the "comforting" fog, but something entirely unfamiliar appears!!! What happens?

Science is, (as Popper) built more on a foundation of beliefs than 'facts'. Neural networks are constructed, getting more 'set' as we age. When something new comes along which doesn't fit, it's just 'bounced off' and rejected as there's nothing to hang it to. What price rationalism then? I suggest if only more people could see and accept this then science may progress a little better. Did you do any homework on my evidence samples to support your case?

I actually interdicted as I'd just used that Gödel quote in a paper on Gödel Fuzzy Logic and Bayesian probability distributions. It lifts some fog on measurement and the EPR paradox. I hope to cover the strong IT analogies in my essay.

If I haven't yet asked, could you and James (and John, et al) falsify something for me please, ref the 'excluded middle'?;>;

I propose that no two identical entities above particle scale exist at any one space time point, so any physical ('real') meaning of the proposition A = A, (leading to the paradox of all logical systems and the infinities of mathematics), is falsified. Views?

Why above particle scale? A point i've argued with Tom is that in reality, when we add things together, we get one of something larger, think Bose Einstein condensate, which is just a larger single particle. The problem for math is that as reductionism, it starts to overlook its own assumptions, such as that when we are adding, we are adding the sets and getting a larger set, rather than actually adding the contents of the set. Say, if we add 4 apples and 5 apples to get 9 apples, what we have done is to add the sets to get another set. If we actually added the apples together, we would get a jar of applesauce.

"And your paradoxically insisting that there is one cause for all observed effects, while rejecting free will as a cause -- reveals the irrational foundation of your quest. Think of it this way: Do you consciously control the automatic functions that sustain the life of your body? All those organs, cells and the chemistry that go on doing what...

"And your paradoxically insisting that there is one cause for all observed effects, while rejecting free will as a cause -- reveals the irrational foundation of your quest. Think of it this way: Do you consciously control the automatic functions that sustain the life of your body? All those organs, cells and the chemistry that go on doing what keeps you alive are cooperating in their own interests, to produce what we truly are: a corporation of cooperating cells.

This view accentuates the richness of George Ellis' top-down causality, in which top down events influence bottom up functions. One can easily speculate that without that mutual feedback, the bottom elements are randomly free. Lev Goldfarb's formalization of this language of nature strikes me with the same power of recognition, that self similar classes are organized from randomly free agents."

There is one cause for all effects. That limits the miracles to one. That ensures orderliness. The idea that there could be two or more causes that produce orderliness is false. Coordination between perceived individual causes is evidence of a common cause not yet understood. Theorists take advantange of such lack of knowledge to fill the artificial void with artificial stuffings.

The nature of the one cause can be discerned from its effects. Its effects are all effects. We don't know all effects, but, we know a great many effects. Among those effects are intelligent life and human free-will. They are observed to exist because they are effects. We only see effects.

Your example describing the role of cells in producing the human being is shallow. Those cells are doing what they must do according to the instructions in the genetic code. The genetic code contains the design for the complete organism. Flexibility is part of the design. That is obvious from the fact that no two like organisms are identical. It is obvious from the origin of species. There is no reason to assume that the design for life would be static.

There is no reason to claim that following a dictated design negates the possibility of the arrival of human free-will. Human free-will is not explained by speculating that individual cells pursue their own interests. Individual cells participate in fullfilling prescribed roles. Those roles come from one code in one cell.

I do not understand how you fail to recognize the concept of design involves top-down dictates fullfilled by bottom-up assembly. Top-down dicates are what exist in the single first cell. The bottom-up assembly is prescribed for including allowing for limited flexibility. Feed-back loops, cooperation between groups of cells, also, relative isolation between functions of groups of cells is easily recognized and understood as part of a complete design. Your quotes of Bar-Yam about these occurrances somehow being revealed today in groundbreaking complexity theory appears to me to be well overblown for significance.

You say we are a corporation of cooperating cells as if that says anything beyond observing that the assembling of design for life was followed. What we are is the fullfilment of a purpose. The purpose was for the universe to reach a level of evolution to where it become capable of becoming aware of itself. To be aware is an effect. The universe began in a state of potential. It has since been converting its potential, partly, into effects. This effect we call awareness was prescribed for as much as any other effect that has ever occurred. That is unless we allow after-the-fact miracles which I do not. We are a product of the particles of the universe. We are what they were always capable of achieving and reachieving.

They carried along the potential for awareness until human free-will was achieved. It wasn't achieved by particles pursuing their own interests. It was achieved by particles doing everything that they were supposed to be doing. No self-creating-this and self-creating-that to serve as stimulus for imagining unseen, unacknowledged angels or demons or whatever it is that supposedly adds un-prescribed for effects to the universe.

I guess you can have the last word on this also. I have written about this at leangth. I am not going to do it again now in message form. So if it is unsatisfactory, let it be so.

Er, how can an event which is physically existent subsequently, physically affect an event which was physically existent previously, ie the two are in the wrong sequence order. And then, how can a physically existent event physically influence the ‘future’, because by definition, the future is not physically existent. All it can be, if certain physical conditions pertain, is be a cause of the subsequent event.

Our knowledge of reality is inherently subjective and we are constantly seeing past events from different perspectives. The objective reality is a mindless sea of energy and order, whether it is gases coalescing into a star, or information being absorbed by our brains, is in constant flux. Any knowledge you have of an event is specific to the input into your senses. That is reality and that reality is not static. There is no blocktime dimension, where all events exist inshrined in the four dimensional geometry. So subsequent events do affect any evidence of prior events.

This is not the answer QM might give, but reality is not so much probabilistic, as subjective.

Some areas of science might currently be “more on a foundation of beliefs than 'facts'”, but this is not a necessary condition. The process known as science can be objective, because what is being examined is independent and limited.

“I propose that no two identical entities above particle scale exist at any one space time point, so any physical ('real') meaning of the...

Some areas of science might currently be “more on a foundation of beliefs than 'facts'”, but this is not a necessary condition. The process known as science can be objective, because what is being examined is independent and limited.

“I propose that no two identical entities above particle scale exist at any one space time point, so any physical ('real') meaning of the proposition A = A, (leading to the paradox of all logical systems and the infinities of mathematics), is falsified. Views?”

As John then said, why this condition of “above particle scale”, though I understand what you probably meant. And incidentally, please note that two cannot be identical, because there is two, ie they are different! Forget what the actual scale is, the important point is that there is some form of ‘bottom line’ (it may be manifest in different types, but again that is detail). Now, the point is that physical existence occurs at that level, and only at that level. And only in one physically existent state, of whatever it is, at that level. This is the key misconception.

We think of physical existence as ‘things’, with a nod to the concept that there is ultimately a ‘bottom line’. But this is not correct. The cat and dog that Tom referred me to a few posts back, do not exist physically. This is a conceptualisation of existence at a higher level. That is, certain superficial physical characteristics are deemed to define it. Indeed, even at that level of conceptualisation there is contradiction, because we continue to refer to the ‘thing’ as the same ‘thing’ even though it has changed, ie it has got fatter, greyer, lost a leg in an accident, etc. By definition, if there is alteration, then it is not the same, it is something else. But the point is that the essential superficial attributes pertain, so we continue to deem it as a ’thing’ which is persisting in existence.

In other words, Tom’s cat, dog, whatever, is, physically, a sequence of physically existent states, where at a higher level of perception, not existence, certain superficial features persist.

So going back to your point. It is not particle or whatever it is, per se, but physically existent state thereof, and that is different at any given time. This is how physical existence must occur. There can only be one definitive physically existent state of whatever constitutes physical existence in existence at any given time. Which is what I have been saying for the past two years. How that manifests ‘in practice’, since this is just a generic statement, is another matter.

So yes, A does nor equal A. But as I said at the start, it cannot because there cannot be two A’s, that is a function of classification, not existence. You said there are two of them, ie there is a difference. So from the outset you needed to label them A & B. Even two or more physically existent states which are identical in their state are not identical, because they are different states.

Not so, as I have explained to you many times. Indeed, I am surprised more people do not jump on this aspertion on their endeavours.

At any given time, knowledge can only be, at best-which everyone strives for-, the best approximation available at this time. We all know this, but for obvious reasons do not append that caveat to every statement made. However, ultimately, since what we are investigating is independent and limited, we can reach the point where we can state that this knowledge is the equivalent of what exists. Obviously we cannot say it is definitely what exists, but then science is not involved in that pointless endeavour. Because we can only know what it is potentially possible for us to know.

“So subsequent events do affect any evidence of prior events”

In terms of thinking/perception, but I am talking about existence, and thinking/perception cannot affect that.

You write, "Science is, (as Popper) built more on a foundation of beliefs than 'facts'."

In Popper's terms, a fact is measured correspondence between the abstract theory and the physical result. Scientific facts are potentially perishable (falsifiable); I don't think there is disagreement, however, on what makes a fact a fact. Belief is not entailed.

You write, "Science is, (as Popper) built more on a foundation of beliefs than 'facts'."

In Popper's terms, a fact is measured correspondence between the abstract theory and the physical result. Scientific facts are potentially perishable (falsifiable); I don't think there is disagreement, however, on what makes a fact a fact. Belief is not entailed.

"Neural networks are constructed, getting more 'set' as we age. When something new comes along which doesn't fit, it's just 'bounced off' and rejected as there's nothing to hang it to."

That's true in some sense. Disconnected data have to be incorporated into theories -- guesses -- and then validated by accurately predicted results. The data of themselves just don't mean anything. Has nothing to do with how old one is.

"What price rationalism then? I suggest if only more people could see and accept this then science may progress a little better."

It's actually anti-rationalist to assign meaning to data in absence of a theory that incorporates it.

"Did you do any homework on my evidence samples to support your case?"

No, I can only do so much.

"I actually interdicted as I'd just used that Gödel quote in a paper on Gödel Fuzzy Logic and Bayesian probability distributions. It lifts some fog on measurement and the EPR paradox. I hope to cover the strong IT analogies in my essay."

"If I haven't yet asked, could you and James (and John, et al) falsify something for me please, ref the 'excluded middle'?;>;

I propose that no two identical entities above particle scale exist at any one space time point, so any physical ('real') meaning of the proposition A = A, (leading to the paradox of all logical systems and the infinities of mathematics), is falsified. Views?"

I'm not sure what you mean, but that A = A assumes a finite world in the first place.

Looks like something other than what I say. What I argue is that the universe is controlled. That is obvious. Any disorder would quickly destroy order. The universe is orderly. Out of this order comes human free-will. It is free choice. It is not controlled or contained by an individual's past experiences. The challenge that you avoid with your free-will 'given' is: How does this orderly unverse give rise to human free-will. I answer that question. I don't take the most important property of the universe and claim it as first cause for free. Human free-will is the subject that I have been addressing. It appeared very late in the evolution of life. What free-will are you talking about?

Scale is important as we lose 'observability'. But I erred in including 'space', just one instant in TIME is enough. This is fundamental: if no two identical entities can exist, as in the (DFM) theory I've failed to falsify, then the whole foundation of arithmetic, calculus and logic; 'Aristotle = Aristotle' is false in physically REAL terms. The 'Law of the Excluded Middle' is also then false, and I've derived a replacement that seems to work consistently, based on A~A. Indeed I agree you're on the right track with the apples. But;

If 3 dice have the same number of combinations which produce the totals 9,10,11 and 12, is there an equal probability of each total turning up?

I've explored the implications and they open some revealing doors. Including support for Joy's thesis, but not precisely in the way Joy thinks. (Joy doubts I've falsified Bells theorem). In a way Joy is correct, but the doors lead to something far more valuable.

"The challenge that you avoid with your free-will 'given' is: How does this orderly unverse give rise to human free-will."

Nonsense. I have clearly said and implied that human free will is equal to the free will of every other particle of the universe, on every scale.

"I answer that question. I don't take the most important property of the universe and claim it as first cause for free."

Then you don't believe free will exists, do you?

"Human free-will is the subject that I have been addressing. It appeared very late in the evolution of life. What free-will are you talking about?"

You asked for a first cause. I gave it to you -- it meets absolutely *every* requirement for an empirically based description of how the world works. *Independent* of the assumption that human free will is anything special.

Popper better identified foundational 'beliefs'; "Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It's like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or 'given' base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it's not because we've reached firm ground. We...

Popper better identified foundational 'beliefs'; "Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It's like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or 'given' base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it's not because we've reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being."

I have presented a 'theory' very consistent with self and observation, with full ontological construction. The problem is that it's not familiar. So most wandering out of the fog into the light refuse to look and run back in. But it is what it is. I can only hope that some may stop and examine the rationale.

James has a point re 'data' that you, as so many, have missed; In your view we must have a theory so we can check the data for consistency. But what then happens is that if we can make it fit we add it as support, if not it's often ignored or called into question. That is why we can't now walk across the carpet. It's turned into a mountain. The list I gave you was just the tip.

In my view we have a wide range of possible theories and models. After we've carefully study what the data really IS,and it's error bars, we can then only CONSTRAIN each possibility. This 'matrix' approach is how I use data sets. I've eliminated over 100 theories to reach a best fit model which I can now find no robust data to falsify. That is how science should be done I suggest.

Unfortunately it isn't. I present my findings, and the few who look at it subconsciously say, "no that can't be right as it's not what I believe". i.e. their neural network just 'bounces it off' as a 'bad fit' to THE NETWORK, not to the data! It's human nature. What we think we do is not what we do.

Paul, that answers your point to. But thank you both for agreeing that A=A is only 'metaphysical', consequently the 'Excluded Middle' for physical bodies and events is false. There is a 'fuzzy' non zero probability between the propositions; 'A or B'. As you say Tom, and axiomised for an infinite universe; 'Everything that can happen will happen'.

James, I cant entirely agree about order. Stochastic randomness rules at particle level. Even the 'causal' collision between 2 protons in the LHC is not causal at all! They're trying to collide 3 quarks against 3 quarks, and have not a clue if it's a 'full ball', 'glance' or any of infinite interaction possibilities in between, and there are also countless protons in each bunch and multiple 'contacts'!

Perhaps if anything we may be an 'experiment' with one original 'cause', to find out what ultimately happens. I don't believe we're a predetermined programme to that scale. As information theory says, to accurately model the evolution of the universe mathematically would need a computer the size and complexity of the universe (that's in my essay draft!). Is that not fair?

"Do you have a reference for that, James, besides your personal opinion? If I had to go to the trouble (I don't) to show that it is clearly right, I could."

Rationalism n. the belief that all knowledge and truth consistin what is ascertainable by rational processes of thought and that there is no supernatural revelation. || (philos.) the doctrine tha true and absolute knowledge is found only in reason.

Rational adj. of or relating to reason.

Rationality n. The condition of being rational; clear thinking.

I am a reationalist by these definitions. The anti-rationalist tag is defaming. You do not self-appoint yourself as clear thinking or relating to reason just because you believe in theory. Theory is invention. I say clear thinking applied to empirical evidence does not require or even tolerate invention. There is a difference of opinion. My opinion relates to reason and clear thinking. You are welcome to you opinion, you are not welcome to employ name-calling for the purpose of selling your own opinion as the rational one.

""The challenge that you avoid with your free-will 'given' is: How does this orderly unverse give rise to human free-will."

Nonsense. I have clearly said and implied that human free will is equal to the free will of every other particle of the universe, on every scale.""

It is not nonsense. Is the universe completely orderly or not? What free-will do particles have? Connect your particle 'free-will' to human free-will.

""I answer that question. I don't take the most important property of the universe and claim it as first cause for free."

Then you don't believe free will exists, do you?"

Human free-will is not the first property of the universe. I have stated clearly that human free-will exists.

""Human free-will is the subject that I have been addressing. It appeared very late in the evolution of life. What free-will are you talking about?"

You asked for a first cause. I gave it to you -- it meets absolutely *every* requirement for an empirically based description of how the world works. *Independent* of the assumption that human free will is anything special."

No it doesn't. What free choices based on reason do particles make? Human free-will is the most special effect in the universe.

That which exists and in so doing creates physically existent representations thereof (eg light, noise, vibration, etc) which we can receive. This includes what we can properly hypothesise would have been receivable, ie what we determine, on the basis of how the physical processes operate, could have been received had that not been prevented by some identifiable factor.

In other words, physical existence, for us, can be characterised as a physically existent sequence and a physically existent representation thereof. The nature of that representation (or information) being a function of the physical characteristics of both and hence how they interact in any given circumstance.

“if no two identical entities can exist, as in the (DFM) theory I've failed to falsify”

As I said above, you do not need DFM theory (and probably this does not prove it anyway), just common sense. The notion of “two identical entities” is a contradiction, ie if there are two then they cannot be identical.

Your correction to only time rather than space and time is noted, but irrelevant. Because at any given time there can only be a singular spatial disposition. This is how physical existence occurs, it is purely spatial.

And it is not that the representational devices (maths, etc) are inherently wrong, but that they are depicting what is actually a sequence of physical existences, ie different physically existent states, as if they are the same.

Multi scale variety. There is no way in principle to determine that the elements of a self-organized (i.e., self similar and self limiting) system on any scale are not acting as cooperative free agents.

You: "I answer that question. I don't take the most important property of the universe and claim it as first cause for free."

Me: Then you don't believe free will exists, do you?"

You: Human free-will is not the first property of the universe. I have stated clearly that human free-will exists."

I contend that human free will is indistinguishable from any other freely acting agent of a system domain.

""Human free-will is the subject that I have been addressing. It appeared very late in the evolution of life. What free-will are you talking about?"

You asked for a first cause. I gave it to you -- it meets absolutely *every* requirement for an empirically based description of how the world works. *Independent* of the assumption that human free will is anything special."

You: No it doesn't. What free choices based on reason do particles make? Human free-will is the most special effect in the universe."

" ... you are not welcome to employ name-calling for the purpose of selling your own opinion as the rational one."

Your philosophical definition of rationalism is way too broad to apply to scientific method. I didn't say you were irrational: I said that the assigning of meaning to data, without a theoretical model to incorporate it, isn anti-rationalist. It is.

You: You asked for a first cause. I gave it to you -- it meets absolutely *every* requirement for an empirically based description of how the world works. *Independent* of the assumption that human free will is anything special."

You: You asked for a first cause. I gave it to you -- it meets absolutely *every* requirement for an empirically based description of how the world works. *Independent* of the assumption that human free will is anything special."

Me: No it doesn't. What free choices based on reason do particles make? Human free-will is the most special effect in the universe."

You: You may believe so. The facts do not support your belief.

Me: The definition of human free-will Does not fit with your theory. You appear to be trying to misrepresent human free-will as something that may be describable by physics theory. Is that the case? You think that mechanical, theoretical degrees of freedom for particles explain the existence of human free-will? You can't establish that kind of connection with facts. Human free-will is: The power and exercise of unhampered choice. Theoretical physics has nothing available to explain that.

Me: Are you claiming human free-will is due to a mechanical, in the sense of theoretical physics, action that even particles experience? This looks like the kind of claims made loosely by theorists when they can't see that they do not, by virtue of their profession and talents, always have the high ground on intelligent answers. They are on theoretical ground, a tenuous position to be in. Human free-will is the greatest achievement of the universe. The facts support this conclusion.

Me: The fact is that we make free decisions for reasons that almost always go far beyond anything that theoretical physics claims to have explained. And, that is allowing that theoretical physics is correct in what it professes within its purview. The guesses and empirically unsupportable inventions that thrive in theoretical physics restrict any claim to explaining something as far out of their reach as human free-will. This stuff gets stuffed.

"Surprisingly, perhaps, we claim now that free will is everywhere, but it is not the notionthat was assumed as an 'axiom' by today's quantum scientists. We see the situation as follows. In Nature, the Laws determining its evolution are complex. This means that, in the vast majority of cases, one will have no way to foresee exactly what will happen. Only after meticulously painstaking calculations, from beginning to end, one might be able to look forward a bit,but very soon, one will be forced to make crude approximations. The true values of Nature's degrees of freedom will not be known for sure -- one will have to make 'educated guesses'. Conversely, if we wish to understand why and how a certain situation in this Universe has arisen, we have to make numerous guesses concerning the past, and eventually select the one that fits best with everything we know. In our model, we will only be able to perform such tasks if we possess some notion of the complete class of all possible configurations of our variables. For every member of this class, our model should produce reasonable predictions. Even if, in the real world, only very limited subsets of all possibilities will ever be realized anywhere at any time, our model must be able to describe all eventualities.

If we would have been deprived of the possibility to freely choose our initial states, we would never be able to rely on our model; we would not know whether our model makes sense at all. In short, we must demand that our model gives credible scenarios for a universe for any choice of the initial conditions!"

In other words it is a form of focused extraction of pattern from the larger context. Thus while it is "objective" because it is true, it is not "objective" in the sense of being a contextually complete knowledge of reality. It is a truth inductively extracted from observation, to be deductively applied to further examination.

"James, I cant entirely agree about order. Stochastic randomness rules at particle level. Even the 'causal' collision between 2 protons in the LHC is not causal at all! They're trying to collide 3 quarks against 3 quarks, and have not a clue if it's a 'full ball', 'glance' or any of infinite interaction possibilities in between, and there are also countless protons in each bunch...

"James, I cant entirely agree about order. Stochastic randomness rules at particle level. Even the 'causal' collision between 2 protons in the LHC is not causal at all! They're trying to collide 3 quarks against 3 quarks, and have not a clue if it's a 'full ball', 'glance' or any of infinite interaction possibilities in between, and there are also countless protons in each bunch and multiple 'contacts'!"

This is not a description of randomness. There are properties responsible for causing the events to occur as well as the effects that follow. In randomness there are no properties of control. Randomness allows for no order.

"Perhaps if anything we may be an 'experiment' with one original 'cause', to find out what ultimately happens. I don't believe we're a predetermined programme to that scale. As information theory says, to accurately model the evolution of the universe mathematically would need a computer the size and complexity of the universe (that's in my essay draft!). Is that not fair?"

The universe is orderly. It can't have disorder, randomness would be disorder. I think that references to randomness in the universe are wrong. I see it as a misuse of the word random. I find many examples of loose uses of words in theoretical physics. Any disorder would destroy all order. All effects had to have been provided for right from the beginning. This follows from the existence of order.

Chance is not randomness and chance does exist. The universe has a purpose and a goal, but there is no one path being followed toward achieving that goal. There is a great deal of complexity with innumerable arrangments. But, that complexity does not rule out order on any scale nor does it hide newly added causes for effects that were not prescribed for at the beginning of the universe.

I think the 'computer' reference is accurate. The universe is as complex as it is. The idea that all the effects that will ever occur in the universe are prescribed for right from the beginning, does not involve anything supernatural. Supernatural is something to be applied to any unprescribed for effects thrown into the mix after the beginning. Theorists engage in imagining and relying upon such supernatural inventions. They have to do this because their fundamentals are inadequate to account for the operation of the universe.

No, John. I don't think you've ever understood anything I've said. The reason that 1 + 1 = 2 is axiomatic. Not only have I denied the axiomability of scientific (objective) knowledge, I have explicitly identified objective knowledge as the correspondence between those abstract models (such as 1 + 1 = 2) and physically measured results.

I didn't make it up. It comes directly from Tarski's correspondence theory of truth, translated into the terms of scientific objectivity by Popper.

You write, "James has a point re 'data' that you, as so many, have missed; In your view we must have a theory so we can check the data for consistency. But what then happens is that if we can make it fit we add it as support, if not it's often ignored or called into question."

Data is never made to 'fit into' a theory. Theory is always primary to the interpretation of data.

There are theories -- such as the special and general theory of relativity -- that come to us "mathematically complete," meaning that the theory makes novel predictions. This is a more convincing kind of scientific theory, because if the predictions are validated by experiment, we've learned something new by reason alone.

Mathematically incomplete theories -- such as quantum mechanics -- are constructed after the fact to explain data. All quantum theory turns on explaining Young's two-slit experiment. The mathematics needed are not sophisticated; they've been around for a hundred years or more. Attempts to make quantum theory complete have failed so far; many (including yours truly) reject the notion that it can be made complete without an entirely new mathematical framework, preferably one that accommodates the continuous functions of relativity. Quantum field theory (and its extensions including string theory) attempt to do this; so do topological models such as Joy Christian's, which are fully analytical.

For each physical action there are physical effects. The physical action may or may not include an intelligent decision beforehand. If the physical action does not include an intelligent decision, as in particles meeting up somewhere in the universe, there are effects. When a decision is made there are no effects. After the decision is made there are no effects. When physical action is taken to implement the decision, then, there are effects. Theoretical physics consists of imagined mechanical causes for mechanical effects. There is no free-will in theoretical physics. We do exist in this universe. We do cause effects in this universe. But we are not the subject of theoretical physics.

Quoting Gerard 't Hooft: "Just imagine that we would be living in a completely deterministic world. Would the notion of 'free-will' that is usually employed be correct? My answer is: of course not!

This is not the way I would make the point. I would instead state it as: In an orderly universe, would the notion of 'free-will', as understood in the sense of human free-will, be correct? The answer is of course it would be. We know that is the case so certainly it can be the case.

The article appears to me to be assuming the existence of human free-will without accounting for its existence. It is not part of the mechanical theories mentioned. It is not part of the experiment. The action taken after free-will is exercised is part of the experiment. Free-will is not the act, it is a decision. If it is not followed by an act, then there are no effects. My use of the words act and effects pertain to the experiment. I know that the brain undergoes changes.

James' point is that theory is fitted to the patterns in the data. Often different theories can be fitted to the same patterns in the data. It is the patterns that do the work of making predictions. The theory is a display of the imagination of the theorist. Theory is a artificial restraint forced onto physics equations. The meanings of the equations are forced to be subservient to the theory. The original meanings of the equations contained the maximum amount of knowledge about that which empirical evidence is telling us. The restrained theoretical equations give us a strange constrained mix of empirical information and theoretical interpretation

Subjective doesn't mean something isn't true. If you and I look at a statue from different angles, we both have truthful, but subjective impressions of it

Yes, axiomatic equivalencies are not necessarily physically true. Your apple might be large and ripe, while mine might be small and green, so one apple is not necessarily equivalent to another, even if 1=1.

My point is that knowledge is necessarily fragmentary. Whether it is subjective, as in one view of the statue, or generic, as in 1=1. We can't have a whole understanding of anything, because knowledge is very much a function of organizing these pieces of information and the big problem with that is that different bits of information don't always fit together. The uncertainty principle. You can't combine different views of the same statue, or they would cancel out the distinctions, very much like taking two pictures with the same negative, or eventually taking multiple pictures will only create a white negative, like multiple frequencies create "white" noise.

Just as a generic model has to distill to the most common attributes of multiple circumstances and so not be able to explain the more complex or unique aspects of the particular. As Wolfram was quoted above, it would take a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe.

So that while there might be, presumably, an "objective" reality, we can only sense it very subjectively. The confusion of my point is that I'm treating those distilled, generic models as another form of subjectivity, being a particular view of a larger reality.

(John) “Subjective doesn't mean something isn't true. If you and I look at a statue from different angles, we both have truthful, but subjective impressions of it”

Incorrect. Leaving aside the potential points about individual perception, etc, in that circumstance there are two objectively correct pieces of knowledge in respect of different angles of the statue. Subjectivity is knowledge which does not correspond with reality, ie it is not true. It is only rational (ie ‘true’) in a context/on the basis of a presumption/etc, that has no proven correspondence with the reality knowable to us.

Incorrect. Theory, in the proper meaning of the word, ie as opposed to hypothesis, guesswork, or what is actually belief, is generic knowledge based on specific proven correspondence with reality. And therefore it enables predictions about what will occur in certain circumstances. By definition, as everybody knows, but does not bother to attach the caveat, it is (or should be, but people are allowed to make genuine mistakes) the ‘best representation available of reality given all the proven information available at that time’. Subsequently, it could prove to be wrong, but that is how knowledge is developed. Eventually, when no new knowledge becomes available, we can then deem that knowledge to be the equivalent of reality.

In both cases what you are failing to understand is that there is only knowledge of/information about, there is no ‘directly accessible’ reality, even though there is a definitive reality available to us to know (ie what must be presumed to be potentially only one form of existence, but as we cannot know any other, that is irrelevant). This being determined by a physical process, not philosophical ramblings. We are not considering any alternative to that, because we cannot know them, ie there is no reference available to judge their validity, either way.

You mentioned string theory in an earlier message. I don't see that message so I can't quote. I will say what I think about string theory. It is probably more than any other theory a real stretch of imagination. What I understand its reason for being is: Singularities appeared to be an insurmountable problem. Theorists got rid of that problem. They smudged the singularities away. They incorporated those smudges into a new invented world. Around those smudges they built string theory. I don't read much about string theory. I find it difficult to listen to or read works by physicsts who speak to the public about string theory as if it is real. It seems to be an unsupportable strong belief for them.

So, what I think is that string theory is designed to fit the patterns in empirical evidence. Losing the singularities might have been a good move. However, imagining that the smudges consist of twists of space-time is empirically unjustified. It is just more artificial restraint forced onto physics equatons. With regard to the details of string theory: You can beat me up on this one. I consider it folly and don't spend my time on it.

Objective: belonging not to the consciousness or the perceiving or thinking subject, but to what is presented to this, external to the mind, real

Subjective: belonging to, of, due to, the consciousness or thinking or perceiving subject or ego as opposed to real or external things; due to one’s own feelings or capacities rather than being actually existent

Now, before you make the next false move, the output of the sensory/brain processing, and the process itself, are not part of the physical circumstance. This involves converting a received physical input into a perception thereof. The process does not involve the alteration of physically existent form.

From these perceptions, individualistic and generic influences must be eradicated in order to discern what was received, ie knowledge thereof. And then from that, on the basis of understanding the physical properties involved, the reality can be extrapolated, ie knowledge thereof. At any given time, until significant time has passed, this procedure is not going to be perfect, but that is not the same as your constantly repeated mantra that knowledge is inherently subjective or James’ view of theory.

The real question here, rather than all this energy being spent on a simple question as to the difference between objective/subjective, is what constitutes what we are striving to be objective about, ie what, generically, is reality, and how can it occur, within the bounds of what is knowable to us.

James, you are probably thinking of this reply I made to S K Kauffmann:

"I'm not as critical of string theory -- as an extension of quantum field theory, it has after all shown us new rigorous paths toward reconciling a continuous field theory with discrete measurement functions that may not be possible to realize without extra dimensions."

You write "I find it difficult to listen to or read works by physicsts who speak to the public about string theory as if it is real. It seems to be an unsupportable strong belief for them."

No theory is real. It is the correspondence of theoretical elements to physically measured results that make a theory physical. Mathematical theories stand alone, whether they refer to physics or not.

"So, what I think is that string theory is designed to fit the patterns in empirical evidence."

Quite right. And it does. The converse also applies: patterns in nature fit string theory. (Though they are not designed.)

"Losing the singularities might have been a good move. However, imagining that the smudges consist of twists of space-time is empirically unjustified."

It's a bit more complicated than that. Space and time are entirely sufficient and necessary, however.

If you start from a 'limited universe' you must explain what those limits are and what lies beyond them, spatially and temporally.

It seem it may surprise you that I'm very well aware it's the "standard belief" that; "there is no ‘fuzziness’ in the events (whatever ) labelled A & B."

That is the; 'Law of the Excluded Middle". It's always been problematic in logic, but is essential to maths.

That is why what I suggest is so new. It is entirely equivalent to Godel fuzzy logic, which emerged from his incompleteness theorem (simplistically; maths is not 'complete' and has infinities). Your 'solution' seems to be to deny the infinities. That is no solution and not consistent anyway with Godel's theorem, which is quite irrefutable.

I point out that degrees of similarity may be assigned. Aristotle MAY INDEED be more like Paul than like a chariot. We then have to look at the compound superposed characteristics making them up and, subject to criteria, will always fins a Bayesian amplitude distribution. Only when we 'assign' and integer or use a 'derivative' do we enter 'metaphysics' and leave physical reality behind.

It is a complex proposition with much evidence, so you may need to read the essay to judge it fairly. (not pre-judge against assumptions normally subconciously, - which is, right or wrong, my very point about how we ACTUALLY behave!

"Though I appreciate that you want to do science in a different way, James -- you have to build the foundation for it from the ground up. It won't make sense to scientists trained in a specific method to try and fit your results to well established theories and models. I also appreciate that you have a theory that you say recapitulates the results of relativty -- do you know that string theory also recapitulates all the results of not only relativity but particle physics as well, via relativistic quantum field theory? Why do you think string theorists are dismayed that many if not most physicists don't accept that those results are good enough for a bona fide physical theory?"

I did build it from the ground up. That is why I point to f=ma so often. It contains the first error, the choice to make mass an indefinable property, of theoretical physics. I build up from there with many results. It is true it is not established, but, theorists are not likely to warm up to removing theory. That brings me to string theory. It is compounded-theory like compounded-interest on money. The effort to force theoretical speculation onto physics equations is more pronounced there than for relativity theory.

Now your argument is semantic and relies on your own definition of 'order' which precludes any meaning for the word 'random' at all.

I quite agree your conclusion if using that definition. But the definition is then meaningless. If there is not room for a meaning of 'random' then there is no order, except with infinite recursion to smaller scales, so 'superdeterminism'

Consider this: If condensed matter is 'condensed' from the dark energy continuum that must exist to explain any credible cosmological data, let's say just by 'stirring it up' by passing bodies through it. (which matches all the data just fine). Can we than 'count' or 'calculate' such a process, to render it super-causal and 'ordered' rather than 'random'.

If you are just saying it's 'tidy', as the continuum is 'flat' and isotropic, than that may have limited validity, but if something can't be predicted it must be random as a fundamental definition of the word, i.e. not breaching causality. Then I point you to the peculiar anisotropies and inhomogeneity of the CMBR!, not to mention the 'gradients' of gravity.

So I'm poinint out we can all use the work 'order' if we massage it's meaning to encompass other meanings, but the value surely must remain, as always, in 'constraining' it's meaning, so we get a BETTER understanding of what's going on, not just 're-labelling' things.

Perhaps give your specific definition of random that stops us being a tape that re-runs precisely the same lives ad infinitum.

"Now your argument is semantic and relies on your own definition of 'order' which precludes any meaning for the word 'random' at all."

Random; in an unplanned way, without any predetermined direction, purpose or method. If any property, other than randomness, exists in an example, then the example is not about randmness. it may be about unpredictability due to complexity or it...

"Now your argument is semantic and relies on your own definition of 'order' which precludes any meaning for the word 'random' at all."

Random; in an unplanned way, without any predetermined direction, purpose or method. If any property, other than randomness, exists in an example, then the example is not about randmness. it may be about unpredictability due to complexity or it may involve unpredictability due to chance, but it is no long er random. If properties with direction or meaning or purpose are included, then tandomness is not. An electron cannot behave randomly.

"I quite agree your conclusion if using that definition. But the definition is then meaningless. If there is not room for a meaning of 'random' then there is no order, except with infinite recursion to smaller scales, so 'superdeterminism'"

The definiton is not meaningless. It makes clear that the uiverse does not operate randomly at any scale.

"Consider this: If condensed matter is 'condensed' from the dark energy continuum that must exist to explain any credible cosmological data, let's say just by 'stirring it up' by passing bodies through it. (which matches all the data just fine). Can we than 'count' or 'calculate' such a process, to render it super-causal and 'ordered' rather than 'random'."

I don't agree that "...the dark energy continuum that must exist to explain any credible cosmological data...". However, even if it does exist the example you are citing is not about randomness. It is about orderliness. Whether or not we can count or calculate it is not related to randomness. You used the word 'process'. That eliminates randomness.

"If you are just saying it's 'tidy', as the continuum is 'flat' and isotropic, than that may have limited validity, but if something can't be predicted it must be random as a fundamental definition of the word, i.e. not breaching causality. Then I point you to the peculiar anisotropies and inhomogeneity of the CMBR!, not to mention the 'gradients' of gravity."

Lack of predictability is not a fudamental definition of 'random' unless it is intended that lack means, in principle, that there is absolutely no possibility of predicting.

"So I'm poinint out we can all use the work 'order' if we massage it's meaning to encompass other meanings, but the value surely must remain, as always, in 'constraining' it's meaning, so we get a BETTER understanding of what's going on, not just 're-labelling' things".

The word order is not massaged. It means that there is direction and purpopse. The evidence of direction is comprehensible effects.

"Perhaps give your specific definition of random that stops us being a tape that re-runs precisely the same lives ad infinitum."

Are you suggesting that randomness is the means by which the universe evolves?

This the point I would make. The tendency in theoetical physics to loosen the meanings of words, sometimes losing the important meaning such as the use of the word 'free-will' by physicists is, I think, a very poor substitute for lack of real answers. The universe evolved in a comprehensible way, it could not have included randomness, disorder, or purposelessness in anyway at any time. Randomness, disrder, or purposelessness would have destroyed any order or purpose that existed. There is no path from meaninglessness to meaning.

I don't think that my argument is one of semantics. I am sure that we disagree in other ways also, but, it is interesting and helpful to read your thoughts.

You suggest; "Data is never made to 'fit into' a theory. Theory is always primary to the interpretation of data."

I hadn't realised you were such an idealist Tom. Of course I agree that's how it should be done, but I suggest the evidence clearly shows it's quite delusional to imagine that's how it really IS always done! if not 'massaged' it's often just ignored.

You suggest; "Data is never made to 'fit into' a theory. Theory is always primary to the interpretation of data."

I hadn't realised you were such an idealist Tom. Of course I agree that's how it should be done, but I suggest the evidence clearly shows it's quite delusional to imagine that's how it really IS always done! if not 'massaged' it's often just ignored.

In astronomy we have patch over patch over patch ad infinitum. I'm currently finding more than one a week! Some data set is analysed using some set of assumptions and massaged and re-interpreted to force it to fit with minimum change to the original theory. It's become so bad with the concordance model we can hardly track back to what the original basis was! Luckily data sets like Planck's eventually come along and show there clearly is "something fundamentally wrong..." with it, as many have been saying for years.

But even Planck's data being made to fit into the personal beliefs (theories) of some of the scientists. For instance the bulk flow data have been 'massaged' down to below the arbitrary 90% 'confidence' level so the interpretation in the paper now conflicts with COBE, WMAP and past Nobel work. You may already be aware this caused much controversy in the team and a most respected authority refused to have his name included! The private arguments are war! But the decent first visible contradiction is this;

Again I could give you scores of examples, and more from optics, bounced back by 'theorists' (Have you heard of Kinetic Reverse Refraction, or Fraunhofer Radiation?). Joy's is different but exposes the same attitudes. If only what you suggest is what really happened I'd be very happy. But to continue pretending it doesn't exist is only to encourage it. I believe we should expose and decry that attitude.

Then if you allow no physical definition for 'random' the word is indeed redundant, and our understanding hasn't been helped, you've just explained your belief, which is of the well known 'super-determinist' case, where there is then no point al all to life!

I suggest the solution may be more subtle. We can have well ordered 'pre-set' systems and interactions but with absolutely no knowledge of what final state they might result in - which then usefully constrains the definitions of 'ordered' and 'random'.

Let me ask; What was the purpose of the first computer? Was it as we mainly use them for now, to play games? Of course not. It was because we did not KNOW what answer may emerge (to resolve the enigmna code) that we carefully ordered so many valves and cogs.

If there was a greater intelligence even he would have wanted greater intelligence still. Why ever not?

So perhaps we can rescue a meaning for the word 'random' as meaning the old QM based measure of our lack of possible knowledge, as no possible intelligence knows what will result from the perfectly ordered but infinitely complex system?

Otherwise perhaps we should just go to church and beg to be released from this entirely pointless mindless cycle!!

"Then if you allow no physical definition for 'random' the word is indeed redundant, and our understanding hasn't been helped, you've just explained your belief, which is of the well known 'super-determinist' case, where there is then no point al all to life!"

No that is not accurate. There was a point to everything. There was purpose as evidenced by orderliness. Life was...

"Then if you allow no physical definition for 'random' the word is indeed redundant, and our understanding hasn't been helped, you've just explained your belief, which is of the well known 'super-determinist' case, where there is then no point al all to life!"

No that is not accurate. There was a point to everything. There was purpose as evidenced by orderliness. Life was prescribed for as a possible effect right from the beginning. No miracles are permitted after the origin of the universe. That the universe is orderly is not my belief. It is obviously orderly.

Deterministic is deterministic. There is no level of super-deterministic unless one believes that they can mix determinism and randomness together without loosing determinism completely.

"I suggest the solution may be more subtle. We can have well ordered 'pre-set' systems and interactions but with absolutely no knowledge of what final state they might result in - which then usefully constrains the definitions of 'ordered' and 'random'."

Knowledge of a final state is not what I argue for. I say what empirical evidence without extra miracles tells us. All effects that have ever and will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for right from the beginning of the universe. No foggy coverups can substitute for latter miracles. If we do not use the word 'knowledge' because oit might be suggestive of prejudicial beliefs, but rather just say that: "Ordered, there is no need to say well ordered, 'pre-set' systems and interactions contain all properties required to result in whatever effects are observed to occur. Nothing is added after-the-fact.

The practice of trusting that new unpredictable properties appear out of a fog or out of lack of understanding their orgin is not good scientific practice. It is the door which theorists have walked through back when they made mass an indefinable property. After that move, they became free to keep pushing their imaginings onto physics equations.

"Let me ask; What was the purpose of the first computer? Was it as we mainly use them for now, to play games? Of course not. It was because we did not KNOW what answer may emerge (to resolve the enigmna code) that we carefully ordered so many valves and cogs."

Computers tell us back that which we told them. There is no exception to this. It doesn't matter if you were not aware of all the implications of your directions beforehand. You still put everything into the computer that you get out of it.

"If there was a greater intelligence even he would have wanted greater intelligence still. Why ever not?"

There is no he. There is no 'would have wanted'. This is about understanding that intelligence cannot arise from dumbness. This is about admitting that we cannot explain the origin of intelligence. It is about admitting that observing effects that inform of of the evolution of observable intelligence is not evidence of intelligence being added to the universe after its origin. The observed intelligence consists of observed effects. All effects that have ever or will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for at the very beinning ofthe universe. No extra miracles are permitted. Being prescribed for is not the same as insisting that the universe had one path to follow in its evolution. It had innumerable paths; however, none of those paths contain effects that were not prescribed for.

"So perhaps we can rescue a meaning for the word 'random' as meaning the old QM based measure of our lack of possible knowledge, as no possible intelligence knows what will result from the perfectly ordered but infinitely complex system?"

I think the real issue here is not how different persons may veiw the meaning of the word random. My own view is clear. if it has to do with uncertainty, te the word is uncertainty not random. If you choose to mean uncertainty or chance, etc. when you speak of randomness, then so long as that is clear we know we are not speaking of the same state of existence. I choose to retain a word, random. to mean lack of control, direction or purpose.

"Otherwise perhaps we should just go to church and beg to be released from this entirely pointless mindless cycle!!"

Church has nothing to do with anything that I have said. i have been careful to not allow myself o be led by prejudice either for or against religion. This is not about studying religion. It is about studying the universe. If we avoid religion in the form of allowing extra miracles then we have a condition that cannot be avoided. That condition is that all effects that have ever occurred or will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for since the very beginning of the universe. Potential for realized effects to occur existed then and many of those realized effects have occurred since.

When I speak of the universe having purpose it is because the universe evolved. It is not about whether the reader believes in God or not. Referrences to religion are evidence of prejudicial beliefs. Do you have knowledge of effects that were not prescribed for? Do you know of effects that could not have been provided for at the beginning? Do you know of a cause, for any effects, that could not have been connected to the properties at the beginning of the unvierse.

Do you know of any cause or causes that were added wholey after the beginning of the universe. Finally, are you motivated to see the universe in a manner that fits with an anti-religious belief? This question is meant to be fair, if it were someone else it might have been correct for me to ask, are you motiviated to see the universe in a manner that fits with your religious belief?

"You want one assumption, from which all observed physical effects follow. Well, free will meets that requirement. I can't help it that you don't like to be free."

This isn't a matter of wanting. It is a matter of recognizing that even if one proposes to have idetified two or more causes, it cannot be that those causes are unique and unconnected if the effects, of all accounted for causes, are comprehensible. The evidence of being comprehensible is evidence that the multiple causes have themselves a common origin. Otherwise, they could not work together, there would not exist comprehensible effects.

This impression of free-will fitting with mechanical theory as a cause is not tenable. Free-will is not a cause. It is an effect. It is a decision. What follows after the decision process is another matter. If one implements their free-will decision in a mechanical manner producing mechanical effects, the cause is not free-will. The cause is the act conducted after the exercise of free-will.

I see it is a practice of theoretical physics to borrow words with meanings that go beyond mechanics and usurp them for the purpose of giving the impression that mechanics involves non-mechanical activities. The observation that there are non-mechanical activities is evidence that the mechanical interpretation of the universe is insufficient. It is the lowest level of interpretation of the nature of the universe. Since its adoption by theoretical physics, there has been an orchestrated, continuous effort, including usurping inappropriate words into discussions of theoretical physics, giving the impression that theoretical physics can account for the effects that those words were originally intended to represent. Free-will is one of those words.

We are talking about theoretical physics. Free-will is a decision. It is a decision that cannot be predicted or explained by theoretical physics. One might act on that decision, but the act is not the decision. The followup physical act is probably applicable to theoretical physics. Calling a decision a cause is not applicable to theoretical physics. Do you have a mathematical equation with the property of free-will in it as a term? I am not asking for an equation about the followup act.

Human free-will is the greatest achievement of the universe. It follows the evolution of the universe. It doesn't lead it. It wasn't the first cause. The representation of the universe by theoretical physics cannot predict nor explain the existence of human free-will. Moving a free-will decision to the front of the evolution of the universe and calling it a cause that is part theoretical physics is akin to a slight-of-hand trick. There is no free-will that is part of theoretical physics. There is no conscious choice that is part of theoretical physics. When I say part of theoretical physics, I am referring to terms in equations.

“So...If we just stare at the world long enough and nothing changes, then it's no longer our perception of reality, but becomes reality itself?”

Do you read what I write?

It has nothing to do with “nothing changes”, but no new knowledge arises. Neither does a “perception of reality”, or more precisely proven knowledge, ever “become reality itself”. In the event of no new knowledge arising then we can eventually deem the knowledge we have as being the equivalent of reality. We never have some form off ‘direct access’ to reality, just knowledge of/information about. All of which I said.

“If you start from a 'limited universe' you must explain what those limits are and what lies beyond them, spatially and temporally”

Er, I would dread to think how many times I have explained, albeit generically, what the limits are. In respect of the other part of your sentence, if there are limits, then you cannot go beyond them, by definition.

“If you start from a 'limited universe' you must explain what those limits are and what lies beyond them, spatially and temporally”

Er, I would dread to think how many times I have explained, albeit generically, what the limits are. In respect of the other part of your sentence, if there are limits, then you cannot go beyond them, by definition.

However. We exist. So we cannot externalise ourselves from it. We are aware of existence via a range of evolved sensory systems which, upon receipt of physical input, can process that and enable awareness thereof in the possessor of the systems. That subsequent processing is irrelevant to the physical circumstance. That received input is the determinant of the existentially closed system we are trapped in. That is, the form of existence we can potentially know.

It may be what ‘really’ exists, it may not, but we can never know, so the possibility of alternatives is irrelevant. Science, as opposed to belief, must only consider existence in terms of the potentially knowable. This does not mean just what is proven to be directly experienceable, but what, given such information, and knowledge as to how the processes work, what is proven to be potentially experienceable. That is, what is proven that we could have experienced but some identifiable factor prevented it.

To illustrate this, in the same way that we are not ‘looking in’ to existence, ie we can be somehow independent of it, this is not the sole preserve of human sentient organisms. Any form of sensing is included. Indeed, a sentient organism from another planet could land here and via some form of ‘conversion system’ enable us access to a sensory system which has not developed on this planet, and hence a whole new range of knowledge about existence. The whole point is, whether it is extending direct experience to include what can be properly hypothesised as having been potentially experienceable, or incorporating non-earth based experience systems, we are in an existentially closed system.

Put another way:

Every statement has the same logical form, ie a comparison to establish difference, which necessitates a reference. But, an absolute extrinsic reference is never available, because that can only ever be the possibility of an alternative. That is, given A (where A is ‘is’), there is always the logical possibility of not-A, however, this cannot be defined from within A, as a reference from within not-A is required for that. So all that can be defined is A, from within A, and that that is not not-A. But not what not-A is.

The corollary of this is that ‘is’ (ie A) must be definitive in itself (ie a closed system), and therefore possible to define, albeit only from within. That is so because there is an absolute reference, which is ‘of ’, or ‘not of’, A, ie the only absolute reference there can be is the factor which determines inclusivity. In the context of existence the absolute reference could be characterised as detectability (either actual or properly hypothesised), because we can only be aware of existence in this form.

So that is the physical basis underpinning knowledge and hence what constitutes physical existence, for us. Albeit generically, the difficult part is establishing how that is manifest, but it helps, first, to understand the nature of what is being investigated. Indeed, following on from that, based on input received, we can identify that the form of physical existence we can know has two fundamental characteristics:

-what occurs, does so, independently of the processes which detect it

-it involves difference, ie comparison of inputs reveals difference, and therefore that there is alteration.

This means that the physical existence we can know is existential sequence. The entirety of whatever comprises it can only exist within that sequence in one definitive physically existent state at a time, as the predecessor must cease to exist so that the successor can exist. To be physically existent, by definition, entails no form of change or indefiniteness in whatever is existent at any given time. Physical existence is a spatial phenomenon. The alteration, which involves a different physical existence occurs over time.

So, there are two key facts to understand:

- what constitutes physical existence is limited

- it only occurs in one definitive physically existent state at a time

The point is not the assigning of an integer. The point is that physical existence does not occur in the way we conceptualise it. There is no Paul. That is when we ‘enter metaphysics’. There is only a physically existent state of something, which, from a more superficial perspective has the characteristics of Paul. Then there is another, and another, and another. Each is different. It is not a case of there is something which persists but has changes to it. All that is happening is that whatever alteration occurs is not unduly affecting the superficial physical attributes by which we deem an existent state to be Paul. In other words, we “leave physical reality behind” right at the outset.

" Neither does a “perception of reality”, or more precisely proven knowledge, ever “become reality itself”. In the event of no new knowledge arising then we can eventually deem the knowledge we have as being the equivalent of reality."

As I interpret this, "reality itself" is the objective, while our "perception of reality" is subjective. The question is whether they do actually meet. QM and GR are descriptions of reality which are not entirely compatible. So, so far as the people who study these things see it, there seems to be a lack of correspondence between reality and our knowledge of it. The assumption is we just haven't studied it enough, but this is a linear assumption. Might it be that knowledge is inherently subjective and essentially breaks down when we are trying to comprehend all sides of everything at once?

A wonderful example of the disparity of organisms is the disparity of our beliefs.

I can't believe we're like a pre-set 'tape'. You're wrong about computers, the output is certainly not the input. The meaning of 'rubbish in rubbish out' does not mean it's the same rubbish! Turing only broke the enigma code because the computer, a very ordered system, gave him the...

A wonderful example of the disparity of organisms is the disparity of our beliefs.

I can't believe we're like a pre-set 'tape'. You're wrong about computers, the output is certainly not the input. The meaning of 'rubbish in rubbish out' does not mean it's the same rubbish! Turing only broke the enigma code because the computer, a very ordered system, gave him the entirely new knowledge he wanted.

I did note you'd carefully avoided religion, but your proposition none the less implies intelligent design. No, I'm agnostic and have absolutely no religious motivation.

You complain about "The tendency in theoetical physics to loosen the meanings of words, sometimes losing the important meaning" ...but then yourself redefine things as you wish. i.e. you remove all randomness, so the word is redundant.

'Superdeterminism' also has a very well defined and established meaning. Perhaps you weren't aware. It is defined as the inevitable conclusion of the road you're venturing down. Don't think philosophy hasn't worn ruts in all alternatives! For order and such complete determinism in outcomes as well as decisions there must be a greater intelligence. To believe you can avoid that conclusion has long been accepted as unavoidable. I agree order in causality, but if each action was predetermined we'd have to have a pre-set 'programme' the precise scale of the universe to 'run the universe', which is self defeating. Perhaps we ARE that programme and are being recorded ready to play back, but why then bother?

I think it more plausible to have an ordered physical system but with the 'free will' to change our minds at the last moment to gain a different, still causal, outcome.

"Are you suggesting that randomness is the means by which the universe evolves?"

No. I'm suggesting that randomness has a valid definition as the unknowable outcome of what may indeed be considered a causal universe. That means if I look up at a complex cloud pattern I may know precisely the ordered rules by which it is formed, but the countless gadzillion billion particle interactions/ cu mm that create are not simply a precise recreation of something previously specified. If I throw 7 'ordered' dice 10,000 times I'll only ever find a probability amplitude distribution, the result of EACH throw each time has not been pre-ordained.

In fact I think that is a key measure of the success of mankind that we all disagree. In a way it's a shame only 1 of us is correct. I should say I wonder which of us it is - but the true probability is it's none of us!

Best wishes

Peter

PS. Paul, I haven't seen a credible explanation of what's beyond your limits. My best guess is that the limits are only in and of our minds.

I can't believe we're like a pre-set 'tape'. You're wrong about computers, the output is certainly not the input. The meaning of 'rubbish in rubbish out' does not mean it's the same rubbish! Turing only broke the enigma code because the computer, a very ordered system, gave him the entirely new knowledge he wanted."

I can't believe we're like a pre-set 'tape'. You're wrong about computers, the output is certainly not the input. The meaning of 'rubbish in rubbish out' does not mean it's the same rubbish! Turing only broke the enigma code because the computer, a very ordered system, gave him the entirely new knowledge he wanted."

We are not like a pre-set tape. I did not say we were. i said enough that that should have been clear.

I am correct about computers. They do exactly what you tell them to do.

The computer does not give new answers to precise questions. It gives unknown answers. The answers are uknown because the human did not bother to follow their own instructions and do the calculation themselves. Computers add and compare. They know nothing. They follow precise instructions. The intructions contain everything needed to produce the answers. The computer tells you back that which you told it. What do you mean by rubbish in rubbish out? I know what is generally meant. I ask because the way in which you put it forward here doesn't appear to me to be applicable for the point you are making. I want to know what you think it means?

Note that what I am saying is based upon following empirical evidence without prejudice. I didn't have to avoid religion. i don't concern myself with religion. Religion is your concern. You mentioned church. Mine is to follow the evidence. Perhaps you are not aware of my photon storm question which I have repeated many times.

"You complain about "The tendency in theoetical physics to loosen the meanings of words, sometimes losing the important meaning" ...but then yourself redefine things as you wish. i.e. you remove all randomness, so the word is redundant."

I didn't redefine random. I gave you the dictionary definition. You have ascribed a meaning to it that does not fit with the dictionary definition. There are other words that pertain to the situations that you describe as being 'random'. I think that you have chosen a definiton. I am aware that theoretical physicsts regularly misuse the word also similar to how they misuse the word free-will.

"Superdeterminism' also has a very well defined and established meaning. Perhaps you weren't aware. It is defined as the inevitable conclusion of the road you're venturing down. Don't think philosophy hasn't worn ruts in all alternatives! For order and such complete determinism in outcomes as well as decisions there must be a greater intelligence. To believe you can avoid that conclusion has long been accepted as unavoidable. I agree order in causality, but if each action was predetermined we'd have to have a pre-set 'programme' the precise scale of the universe to 'run the universe', which is self defeating. Perhaps we ARE that programme and are being recorded ready to play back, but why then bother?"

I didn't say that we were recordd ready to play back. That does not fit with the determinism that is represented by a universe that only allows one miracle. The prefix 'super' has no useful function. Whatever you think it is supposed to add to meaning, it definitely is not needed. What I said was that all effects that have occurred and will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for at the beginning of the universe. Is it your position that there are properties that do not owe their existence to those that existed at the beginning of the universe? What properties might those be? Regarding your concern about 'a greater intelligence', it is not my practice to use stigma nor to be affected by it. What is the origin of intelligence to you? Do you think that intelligence was added to the universe after the universe's beginning?

Providing for all effects does not lead to your conclusion of a pre-set 'programme'. I said enough to make that clear.

"I think it more plausible to have an ordered physical system but with the 'free will' to change our minds at the last moment to gain a different, still causal, outcome."

We do have free-will. Free-will is free of predetermination. How do you think we have free-will? We have it, but, how do you think we come into possession of free-will.

You quoting me: "Are you suggesting that randomness is the means by which the universe evolves?"

"No. I'm suggesting that randomness has a valid definition as the unknowable outcome of what may indeed be considered a causal universe. That means if I look up at a complex cloud pattern I may know precisely the ordered rules by which it is formed, but the countless gadzillion billion particle interactions/ cu mm that create are not simply a precise recreation of something previously specified. If I throw 7 'ordered' dice 10,000 times I'll only ever find a probability amplitude distribution, the result of EACH throw each time has not been pre-ordained."

This is not a description of randomness. For example, the existence of a probability amplitud distribution makes clear that you are not talking about randomness.

"In fact I think that is a key measure of the success of mankind that we all disagree. In a way it's a shame only 1 of us is correct. I should say I wonder which of us it is - but the true probability is it's none of us!"

It appears to me to be the case that your position is that the universe begins determinate, but that complexity beyond our comprehension, removes it, yielding us a universe that is not determinate from its beginning? In other words, is it your position that such a reversal exists but, the means by which the transformation occurs is hidden from us? Is it your position that new properties, that are not prescribed for from the beginning, are generated and hidden somewhere in the fog of complexity? Is it your position that complexity that is beyond our ability to know, is the correct meaning of randomness?

“As I interpret this, "reality itself" is the objective, while our "perception of reality" is subjective”

No, where does it say this in anything I have written? Again you are interpreting what I am saying into your own terms, and then going on to make a point in that context. As per the dictionary definitions which I quoted after you told me to get one, objective is:...

“As I interpret this, "reality itself" is the objective, while our "perception of reality" is subjective”

No, where does it say this in anything I have written? Again you are interpreting what I am saying into your own terms, and then going on to make a point in that context. As per the dictionary definitions which I quoted after you told me to get one, objective is: corresponds with reality, subjective is: does not. The reference, ie what is being deemed as objective or subjective, is the knowledge/perception, not the actuality. Somewhat obviously, because that is objective. The point is we cannot ‘access’ reality directly (and that refers to the form of existence we can know, not any possible alternative which we cannot know), we only have knowledge/information /perception/and any other such word you want to use. Ultimately, because we are trapped in an existentially closed system, ie the physical existence we are considering is limited, we can arrive at a point when we can deem any given knowledge to be the equivalent of that existence. We can never know that it is. Only be default, in so far as no new knowledge comes to light. And, of course, we can never know that that is what ‘really’ exists, because we are trapped in an existentially closed system.

So the answer to this question, “Might it be that knowledge is inherently subjective and essentially breaks down when we are trying to comprehend all sides of everything at once?” is: No. See last two sentences above in particular. Your concept of “sides” is incorrect, as I pointed out to you in respect of your statue example.

The point about: “QM and GR are descriptions of reality which are not entirely compatible” is whether they are valid depictions of reality, not whether they are compatible. If they were valid, then by definition, they would be compatible. An objective view from the south of your statue is compatible with an objective view from the east. QM involves presumptions as embodied in the Copenhagen interpretation which are incorrect, they are contradictory to how we are aware of physical existence and how it occurs. However, it might be that in content, these presumptions do not impinge and much of what is discerned is valid. In respect of GR, I cannot comment on the actual theory as such. What is incorrect is the concept of relativity.

“Maybe I should say knowledge is contextual”

Obviously it is. Everything is. It must be. If something exists (whatever that means) then by definition, there is a context. The point here being that the particular type of perception we refer to as knowledge is supposed to be a true depiction of existence, within the context of what we can know. Which is, for us, existence. Whether it ‘really’ is, we can never know, so that concern is irrelevant.

“A wonderful example of the disparity of organisms is the disparity of our beliefs”

So what? All sentient organisms are utterly irrelevant to the physical circumstance. Other than they are a component thereof, which is not the point here. How they process received physical input has no effect on physical existence, it has an effect on the perception thereof. In respect...

“A wonderful example of the disparity of organisms is the disparity of our beliefs”

So what? All sentient organisms are utterly irrelevant to the physical circumstance. Other than they are a component thereof, which is not the point here. How they process received physical input has no effect on physical existence, it has an effect on the perception thereof. In respect of understanding physical existence, sentient organisms are, in effect, a nuisance, because they have a tendency to misrepresent what was received (this may be a function of sheer lack of capability or ‘thinking’). So, whilst it would be best if sentient organisms were just highly accurate/capable ‘robotic’ processing machines, they are not. But without them, there would be no awareness of physical existence. But that is all.

This whole exchange has been incorrectly predicated on the concept of ‘free will’. This has nothing to do with it. Physical existence exists independently of the mechanisms which detect it. It is this independence, and the nature of those mechanisms, which is the point. Once there is n ‘things’ and ‘interactions’ there is every reason that there will exist what superficially appears to be an ‘order’ and implied ‘purpose’. But there is none, inanimate entities do not have ‘purpose’. [As you indicate]. This is like the notion that there is some ‘magic’ in the fact that given an infinite string of numbers your telephone number will eventually occur. Or give a bunch of chimps typewriters and they will eventually produce something lucid.

In respect of your PS: “PS. Paul, I haven't seen a credible explanation of what's beyond your limits. My best guess is that the limits are only in and of our minds”

See above and the post to John. It has nothing to do with minds. We receive physical input via sensory systems. That is what is limiting. Any attempt to override that must, if it is to be valid, work within the ‘sensory system rules’. In other words, it is a prediction on what could have been received had it been possible, ie not belief. Again, I do not understand your contradictory phrase. By definition, you cannot have a “credible explanation of what’s beyond your limits”, because you can never know. You can only know what potentially is knowable (which is the equivalent of existence for us), not what you can never know.

It is the embodyment of the Uncertainty principle James, and a PAD is certainly 'A' description of randomness, the only one possible, being a post event 'statistical' not causal analysis. I note you still haven't...

It is the embodyment of the Uncertainty principle James, and a PAD is certainly 'A' description of randomness, the only one possible, being a post event 'statistical' not causal analysis. I note you still haven't given your own definition, but suspect you've picked out the term "without purposes or order" included in some dictionaries, which I DON'T agree except where they include the word 'apparent'.

PAD's are also fully in line with the common 'stochastic' view, which produces them just as well, leading to the EPR paradox. We may well call the cosine curve an ordered 'pattern' but we must remember there are infinitely many Bayesian curve profiles possible between propositions A and B (see Godel Fuzzy Logic).

The most common definition of stochastic is something like;

"Situations or models containing a random element, hence unpredictable and without a stable pattern or order. All natural events are stochastic phenomenon."

In which case you are also disagreeing with the definition of 'stochastic' I'll warrant. I have no problem with that. I'd prefer; "...hence without a predicable stable pattern or order. I also agree your point that others are slack with definitions, but if you do the same you must precisely define your alternative, which you haven't done for 'random'.

Perhaps you should look at the deep machinations of someone brilliant on the subject like perhaps Saul Kripke. It's partly to do with accepting consequences, so becomes clear that the moment you invoke something like 'an original miracle' you should define it's terms or if some greater intelligence 'caused' it. Using the term "prescribed for us" can't be justified unless you define how or by whom.

You misdescribe my position, which is evidence based and of a (re-)cyclic universe where old matter is re-ionized and mixed in with freshly condensed stuff each time around. If we look at each galaxy and quasar we can see that although the each undergo the same process there are no two anything like identical. Call that reversal if you wish, but it's a limited view. Nothing is 'hidden from us' except by our limited intellect.

Finally yes, I agree randomness is simply well beyond our prior ability to 'know' with certainty. I also can't envisage any purpose for free will if it's not also beyond the ability to know of who/what ever it was that 'prescribed (the conditions) for us'.

Peter

PS Paul. I see us as more central to us. If mankind were faced with a seemingly impossible bar to survival, perhaps throwing 1,000 disparate minds at it might find the answer. Do you believe throwing 1,000 identical minds at it would do as well? I suggest that is of fundamental importance.

Me: My response was: "This is not a description of randomness. For example, the existence of a probability amplitud distribution makes clear that you are not talking about randomness."

You: "It is the embodyment of the Uncertainty principle James, and a PAD is certainly 'A' description of randomness, the only one possible, being a post event 'statistical' not causal analysis. I note you still haven't given your own definition, but suspect you've picked out the term "without purposes or order" included in some dictionaries, which I DON'T agree except where they include the word 'apparent'."

Me: It is not the embodyment of the Uncertainty principle. Statistical analysis is not an example of the existence of randomness. Rondomness cannot be analyzed. I gave a definition that was clear. You don't have to suspect anything. I gave the dictionary dfinition. It relied upon: "...lack of control, direction or purpose.". That is clear and precise. No fog there. Each example you bring has evidence of control, direction and purpose.

You: "PAD's are also fully in line with the common 'stochastic' view, which produces them just as well, leading to the EPR paradox. We may well call the cosine curve an ordered 'pattern' but we must remember there are infinitely many Bayesian curve profiles possible between propositions A and B (see Godel Fuzzy Logic)."

Me: what is to be remembered is that cosine curves invlude control, direction and purpose. Your retreat into '...infinitely amany..." is a retreat into the fog of complexity.

You: "The most common definition of stochastic is something like;

"Situations or models containing a random element, hence unpredictable and without a stable pattern or order. All natural events are stochastic phenomenon."

In which case you are also disagreeing with the definition of 'stochastic' I'll warrant. I have no problem with that. I'd prefer; "...hence without a predicable stable pattern or order. I also agree your point that others are slack with definitions, but if you do the same you must precisely define your alternative, which you haven't done for 'random'."

Me: I gave a precise definition of random. There is no randomness in the universe. There is always "...control, direction, and purpose..." The universe cannot tolerate lack of control. There can be no analysis of the existence of lack of control. If your analysis shows direction and purose then you were working with control.

You: "Perhaps you should look at the deep machinations of someone brilliant on the subject like perhaps Saul Kripke. It's partly to do with accepting consequences, so becomes clear that the moment you invoke something like 'an original miracle' you should define it's terms or if some greater intelligence 'caused' it. Using the term "prescribed for us" can't be justified unless you define how or by whom."

Me: No I don't have to. The origin of the universe is completely unexplained. You can't explain it and I don't have to. There is no responsibility to define how or whom. Whom has nothing to do with it. My point is that all effects that have ever occurred or will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescibed forright from the beginning of the universe. My point is that I can't and you can't involke extra miracles after te beginning of the universe. If your answers include claims of something coming into existence that was not prescribed for from the beginning, then you are involking extra miracles. The for can't hide that practice for what it is.

You: "You misdescribe my position, which is evidence based and of a (re-)cyclic universe where old matter is re-ionized and mixed in with freshly condensed stuff each time around. If we look at each galaxy and quasar we can see that although the each undergo the same process there are no two anything like identical. Call that reversal if you wish, but it's a limited view. Nothing is 'hidden from us' except by our limited intellect."

Me: I think I understand your position very well. You can't account for existence, but, you are certain that it couldn't be due to anything existing before it. So, you strive to find ways of imagining that existence generated itself.

You: "Finally yes, I agree randomness is simply well beyond our prior ability to 'know' with certainty. I also can't envisage any purpose for free will if it's not also beyond the ability to know of who/what ever it was that 'prescribed (the conditions) for us'."

Me: Randomness is not "...simply well beyond our prior ability to 'know' with certainty." Randomness is the inability to know anything at all. Free-will is an effect of the universe. I asked: "Is it your position that new properties, that are not prescribed for from the beginning, are generated and hidden somewhere in the fog of complexity?"

Me: Computers tell us back that which we have told them. Computers add and compare. They know nothing.

Me: Peter, I am not mired down in beliefs that prevent me from thinking clearly. I just do not agree with your beliefs as stated in these messages. I think that your beliefs are not sustainable for analyses of the nature of the universe. I think you put too much reliance on lack of knowledge to cover for lack of answers. I think that miracles, hidden or otherwise, are not acceptable anwswers.

You assign continuing miracles to me but I haven't and don't claim any role for them. If you wish to assign original creation as a miracle I also have no issue within any broad definition of the word and haven't denied any original event. The recycling implied by the evidence here CMB Asymmetry Analysis paper does not preclude any beginning.

You assign continuing miracles to me but I haven't and don't claim any role for them. If you wish to assign original creation as a miracle I also have no issue within any broad definition of the word and haven't denied any original event. The recycling implied by the evidence here CMB Asymmetry Analysis paper does not preclude any beginning.

Your definition of randomness then only employs part of the dictionary definition; "...control, direction, and purpose..." so you throw the rest of the meaning out too by saying; "There is no randomness in the universe." as "The universe cannot tolerate lack of control.

Any proposition can be made, wild or not. The only value comes from analysis and falsification of the consequences. You're not accepting there ARE any consequences! Yes of course you CAN say; "prescribed in advance" and not accept any consequences, as long as you accept that the term then has no value above an opinion.

You misdescribe my own scientific methods because you seem to judge it in terms of your own methodology. I don't use beliefs or assumptions as my methodology is to hunt those down and expose them. I don't just 'dream up' unfalsifiable 'ideas'. I use the findings, the data (not reliant on the pre-set 'theories' Tom describes) because many different theories may be supported by observations. In fact I've rejected the foundations of maths and logic to falsify A = A, and am still testing it's replacement A ~ A, but as yet I, and nobody else has been able to falsify it. A final consistent theory will only then emerge.

But I'm entirely honest about the implications James. I deny none of them. Only you can decide if you do the same. I also have no problem with lack of answers because I find they emerge on their own when I apply that methodology with complex logical analysis. I frankly can't see them emerging by any other method. But each to his own method, and I agree each may ultimately have value. I look forward to seeing some in your essay.

"Me: what is to be remembered is that cosine curves invlude control, direction and purpose. Your retreat into '...infinitely amany..." is a retreat into the fog of complexity. "

The infinite "fog of complexity" is a useful analogy for randomness. It is not as though reality is completely, predictably ordered, or absolutely random. The laws governing behavior can be absolute, but if the input into those algorithms is unknown, then so will the outcome be unknown and unless the information can travel faster than the signal carrying it, total input cannot be known.

What is most interesting is that complex interface between order and chaos. To use Rumsfield's description, there are the "known knowns," which are ordered. The "known unknowns," which are predictable. And the "unknown unknowns," which are well out in the unpredictable category.

This relationship between structure and randomness is itself both structured and random. As I keep pointing out, information is not cost-free. It requires energy to be manifest. So as you get lots of structure and thus information, you need lots of energy and energy can be quite disruptive to structure. The real world examples of this are too numerous to mention. In institutional structures, they are called legacy costs. In cosmological terms, when mass starts to accumulate, it attracts ever more mass, until the quantity ignites into a star, thus breaking down the structure, releasing energy to go out to be input into other systems. So this relationship between order and chaos is itself a form of predicable cycle, but one that can only be predicted, not fully known, since the input is not known before the event.

"Your definition of randomness then only employs part of the dictionary definition; "...control, direction, and purpose..." so you throw the rest of the meaning out too by saying; "There is no randomness in the universe." as "The universe cannot tolerate lack of control."

I gave the full number one meaning. The second meaning about selecting individuals from a group is not the same thing. There is control, direction and purpose in the second definition. It is an example of common misapplication of the word random as meaning chance. 'The chances are equal' is sufficient to describe the situation. Random and chance are not the same thing. If you choose to 'throw out' the number one meaning and use the second meaning as the important scientific meaning, then we disagree.

"The infinite "fog of complexity" is a useful analogy for randomness."

I see them as not being analogous.

"It is not as though reality is completely, predictably ordered, or absolutely random."

So you hold that there are degrees of order and degrees of randomness. I would answer that: There either is order or there isn't order. There either is rndomness or there isn't randomness.

"The laws governing behavior can be absolute, but if the input into those algorithms is unknown, then so will the outcome be unknown and unless the information can travel faster than the signal carrying it, total input cannot be known."

Yes this is true.

"What is most interesting is that complex interface between order and chaos. To use Rumsfield's description, there are the "known knowns," which are ordered. The "known unknowns," which are predictable. And the "unknown unknowns," which are well out in the unpredictable category."

If chaos is intended to mean randomness, then there is no interfact between them. If chaos is intended to refer to chaos theory, then ok.

"This relationship between structure and randomness is itself both structured and random. "

It seems clear to me from this statement that we are not using the same definitions of random.

"As I keep pointing out, information is not cost-free. It requires energy to be manifest. So as you get lots of structure and thus information, you need lots of energy and energy can be quite disruptive to structure. The real world examples of this are too numerous to mention. In institutional structures, they are called legacy costs."

"In cosmological terms, when mass starts to accumulate, it attracts ever more mass, until the quantity ignites into a star, thus breaking down the structure, releasing energy to go out to be input into other systems." So this relationship between order and chaos is itself a form of predicable cycle, but one that can only be predicted, not fully known, since the input is not known before the event."

You are using the word chaos. For the purpose of making my own point, I will assume that the word chaos is a substitute for the word random. In this case there is no relationship between order and chaos. There is no cycle between order and chaos. predictability versus unpredictability due to lack of knowledge does not change these previous sentences. If chaos does not mean random where random means 'no order, direction or purpose' then, I think that what you say fits with what you mean.

Therefore our knowledge is subjective. It doesn't matter how much it approximates reality, it is still our particular perception of reality.

James,

I do have problem with the various definitions. Random, as in 'no order, direction or purpose' is a peripheral concept. Anything which exists necessarily has some form, so the issue has more to do which how it can be perceived, measured, predicted. As I said, the laws might be absolute, but input and thus prediction is indeterministic. Information is corrosive to information. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

"As I said, the laws might be absolute, but input and thus prediction is indeterministic"

Ok, I see that you disagree. This statement is not clear to me as to its intent. I will assume that you mean that absolute laws can endure randomness as disorder, lack of control, and the absence of direction. I say no that is not and cannot be the case. If you meant something different then it doesn't matter with regard to what I am saying. Thanks for your opinion.

Keep in mind all those terms imply some external reference. Control by what, relative to what? Direction relative to what frame? Purpose?

A rock floating in space might have control in terms of inertia, it would be moving at different speeds and varying directions relative to other objects in their own motion. Purpose? It might have basic mass structure, but it seems hard to describe its existence as much more than utterly random.

Much like a star map only makes sense from a particular position, there is much about reality that only makes sense from a particular frame.

"Keep in mind all those terms imply some external reference. Control by what, relative to what? Direction relative to what frame? Purpose?"

I have straight thoughts about this. We do not know what cause is. We don't know right now at at any time in the past what cause is whether we believe there to be internal multiple causes or one original cause. No one knows the origin of...

"Keep in mind all those terms imply some external reference. Control by what, relative to what? Direction relative to what frame? Purpose?"

I have straight thoughts about this. We do not know what cause is. We don't know right now at at any time in the past what cause is whether we believe there to be internal multiple causes or one original cause. No one knows the origin of control. Of course there is purpose. We don't have to know what cause is to recognize that order requires purpose. I gave a purpose in an earlier message.

"A rock floating in space might have control in terms of inertia, it would be moving at different speeds and varying directions relative to other objects in their own motion. Purpose? It might have basic mass structure, but it seems hard to describe its existence as much more than utterly random."

This is not an example of the definition of random that I have given here. That rock is controlled. Its motions are due to common theoretical causes whose effects are witnessed continuously. What are you looking for in purpose? Does the rock have to say something to prove that serves purpose. Of course not. It just has to move orderly according to the laws of physics. The laws have purpose.

"Much like a star map only makes sense from a particular position, there is much about reality that only makes sense from a particular frame."

And there is much about reality that doesn't change between frames. Gravity remains gravity. The universe operates without interruption no matter what frame you have your view from.

Whatever the cause of the origin of the universe is is not known by scientific methods. My arguments have nothing to do with attempting to describe a character for that cause. My arguments have to do with keeping scientific inquiry free of unscientific bias. The highest achievement of the evolution of the universe is the birth of human free-will. There is nothing in the mechanical interpretation of the universe that could predict or explain the existence of human free-will. The most important questions still have not been answered. Yet, they are the questions that face the greatest resistance from belief systems.

If virtually nothing existed, would there still be order, control, direction, purpose?

Or would these concepts effectively be multiples of zero, in that if nothing exists, then there are no principles either, as there is no manifestation of them?

So if you are willing to think in this bottom up view, then as soon as something exists, it must manifest some form, ie. some shape, order, control, direction, purpose?

If so then this order only emerges with the specific realities it defines.

So if different realities emerge and they follow the same patterns, does that mean there must therefore be some pre-existing set of laws, or does it mean these patterns are necessarily emerging from the same neutral state and repeating similar processes of division and interaction?

In a sense, bootstrapping up the ladder of complexity?

The absolute, the universal state, is equilibrium. As reality emerges from this state, the initial action is fluctuation, multiples of which are expansion and contraction. Are they both purpose, or purpose and anti-purpose? Linear action balanced by the non-linear reaction? In order to have anything, we need its opposite, so wouldn't a necessity of control be anti-control?

"If virtually nothing existed, would there still be order, control, direction, purpose?"

Is this a physics question or a belief question? Didn't I already make clear that we do not know what cause is. Without effects we know nothing.

"Or would these concepts effectively be multiples of zero, in that if nothing exists, then there are no principles either, as there is no manifestation of them?"

There are no multiples of zero in theoretical physics.

"So if you are willing to think in this bottom up view, then as soon as something exists, it must manifest some form, ie. some shape, order, control, direction, purpose?"

What bottom up view? Is your question really a statement that you believe that existence comes into being by its own power and is self creating, generating, sustaining?

"If so then this order only emerges with the specific realities it defines."

What is the meaning of emerges? If you are telling me what reality must be, then please make that clear. The point being that those answers that I say we are still lacking are answers that you have. Is that what you think?

"So if different realities emerge and they follow the same patterns, does that mean there must therefore be some pre-existing set of laws, or does it mean these patterns are necessarily emerging from the same neutral state and repeating similar processes of division and interaction? "

Nothing new occurs without meaning having been provided for. Pre-existing states do not lead to following states unless those pre-existing states contained all that the following states would become. No added-on miracles. Real answers. I assume you have an connective answer to offer for how a lower level of intelligence can bring into being a higher level of intelligence?

"In a sense, bootstrapping up the ladder of complexity?"

Ok John! This is a statement of belief without sicentific support.

"The absolute, the universal state, is equilibrium. As reality emerges from this state, the initial action is fluctuation, multiples of which are expansion and contraction. Are they both purpose, or purpose and anti-purpose? Linear action balanced by the non-linear reaction? In order to have anything, we need its opposite, so wouldn't a necessity of control be anti-control?"

Alright I understand you have a viewpoint based upon your reasoning powers. My own interest is in following empirical evidence.

"Starting to think out loud here.... randomly "

In order for you to be right 'we needs its opposite', meaning, you must also be wrong?

“PS Paul. I see us as more central to us. If mankind were faced with a seemingly impossible bar to survival, perhaps throwing 1,000 disparate minds at it might find the answer. Do you believe throwing 1,000 identical minds at it would do as well?”

We, or indeed any sentient organism since physical existence is not the preserve of the human, are not ‘central’ to anything. All that really means is that we have to be aware in order to know. Applying 1000 similar approaches to an issue is the equivalent of using one, so 1,000 different ones are more likely to identify a solution, assuming they can then agree! But this has nothing to do with physical existence, it is concerned with creating accurate depictions thereof.

I agree with the essence of what you are saying. But it is not randomness. Nothing is random. It is the function of causes. That is, if they were known the outcome could have been predicted. Nothing is ever uncertain, either in terms of what occurred, or what will occur next. The core factor is independence. Physical existence exists independently of the mechanisms which detect it (the point above), it also only exists in one state at a time (we tend to conceive it as existing in several). And as this physical existence can only be what we can know, ie there could be alternatives, then a ‘start’ has to be invoked. And we must leave it at that.

“" The point is we cannot ‘access’ reality directly". Therefore our knowledge is subjective. It doesn't matter how much it approximates reality, it is still our particular perception of reality”

No. Because you cannot know something which you cannot know. We are trapped in an existentially closed system. So from the perspective of what is ‘really’ happening, ie extrinsic to that closed system, then obviously, and by definition, it could be an alternative to what can be established from within the system. But that is meaningless perspective. Our knowledge may or may not be a perception of reality, as in what is ‘really’ happening, but we can never know, so it is irrelevant. We can only establish knowledge on the potential knowledge that is available to us, and ensure correspondence between them.

There is in math. It is zero. I'm not claiming anything, just following the logic where it leads and that seems to be bottom up emergence, yet as soon as anything does emerge, there is corresponding top down feedback.

Paul,

That sounds explicitly subjective to me. That you chose to punctuate it as being objective by default is your choice. I see the open endness as unavoidable.

You: "There is in math. It is zero. I'm not claiming anything, just following the logic where it leads and that seems to be bottom up emergence, yet as soon as anything does emerge, there is corresponding top down feedback."

Not 'the' logic, your logic.

You are claiming something. You appear to be 'claiming' everything.

What is zero in math?

Yes the evolution of the universe includes some things that give the appearance of beginning simple and increasing in complexity. Yes there is feedback. There is coordination. This is no surprise.

About getting rid of belief obstacles: When I say that every effect that has ever occurred or will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for at the beginning of the universe, I am saying anything about means by which the universe came into existenc. May Zeus or a relative did it. Maybe it just popped into existence. Maybe there is a super-intelligence that may or may not have any characteristics of humans. Maybe, maybe, maybe...! It doesn't matter because we do not know by scientific means how or why it happened.

What we can know is that it is prudent to make certain that scientists limit their miracles in their descriptions of the nature of the universe to that one single miracle. If that position is not insisted upon, then theorists are free to pop, pop, pop things into existence at least in their theories. With so much concern about making certain that there is no chance for a God to be allowed into consideration, it is really odd to see that theorists do pop things into existence in their theories. So miracles are not rejected unless they are put forward by theologians. If they are put forward by theorists, they become part of theoretical physics.

My position is to reject miracles after the origin of the universe whether proposed by theologians or theorists. In the case of theorists, it is not an admitted practice. It is vehemently denied. Yet, things still pop into existence for reasons that either go unexplained or are said to be out of our view or are too complex to be understood.

I think it should be the practice that all effects are either shown to be traceable back to the origin of the universe or they are looked at at arms length due to the high risk that they are inventions of the theorist or may be required conditions of ideologies. Keeping these kinds of obstructionist tendencies out of science should be normal practice, but, instead they are oftentimes accepted and even embraced.

Then half of infinity is still infinity. One increment of infinity is still inifinity. We see that the universe has evolved and infinity gives us no solace in our quest to understand. Tracing it back to the beginning of its evolution is the best we can do. There will be a given or givens at that point because we cannot go to 'zero'. If we have reached the point where the next step is the creation of the universe, then we are out of work.

"I think a more interesting question is, what is zero in physics? Is it a singularity, as seems to be the accepted view, or is it a void?"

My understanding is that you are questioning the use of zero beyond using it as a marker for a placeholder. If that is the case then there is no role played by zero in physics.

So in physics, if zero is a singularity, it would seem that the opposite of this reality would be on the opposite side of the singularity, but if zero is the void, ie. empty space, both positive and negative are opposite forces in one reality.

Remember for every action, there is that equal and opposite reaction, so in order for the Big Bang to occur, some opposite effect would have had to occur, but if reality is just a fluctuating vacuum/void, then every fluctuation simply needs an opposite fluctuation to occur.

In math zero is a placeholder just as valid as is 1 or -1. The placeholders could be tic marks. It is more convenient to use the symbols called numbers. In that case we only have to count the markers once. The number reminds us what the count was.

"So in physics, if zero is a singularity, it would seem that the opposite of this reality would be on the opposite side of the singularity, but if zero is the void, ie. empty space, both positive and negative are opposite forces in one reality."

Zero has no place in physics.

"Remember for every action, there is that equal and opposite reaction, so in order for the Big Bang to occur, some opposite effect would have had to occur, but if reality is just a fluctuating vacuum/void, then every fluctuation simply needs an opposite fluctuation to occur."

If you are arguing that there was something existing before the big bang, fine. What that says is that you have not yet gotten to the origin of the universe. The origin will not leave you with anything to talk about existing before. If you accept your equal and opposite fluctuations argument, while we only know of one fluctuation, then, I think your position is analogous to others such a mutiworlds.If you open that door, anyone can push their empirically undemonstrated idea through it also. Theory thrives on speculation. Is it that you believe in theory? I think you would prefer to call it 'following logic'. So would every other theorist.

Yes. It makes a difference whether one is talking about numbers on a ruler or if zero means nothing. The conversations I have been involved in recent days including with you has helped some to clarify my thoughts with regard to my essay entry. I look forward to reading your entry. I am guessing that you are 'bit from it'?

“That sounds explicitly subjective to me. That you chose to punctuate it as being objective by default is your choice. I see the open endness as unavoidable”

Which is why you keep making incorrect assertions. How can what we can potentially know be “open-ended”? It may be vast and complicated. It may involve lots of hypothesising. We may never infer all of it. But the simple fact is that we can only know courtesy of a physical process, and supplement that by working out what we else we could have known directly, had it been possible, ie within the ‘rules’ of detection. As I said in a previous post, if an alien endowed us with a conversion system so that we could access another form of sensory system not developed on this planet, then all we have done is expanded the limit. What may or may not be beyond the limit, we can never know.

“When I say that every effect that has ever occurred or will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for at the beginning of the universe, I am saying…”

Yes, obviously, and I am sure everybody else would agree with you, if you said it clearly. There has to be a start point for this physical existence which we are aware of. Before that start point we can...

“When I say that every effect that has ever occurred or will ever occur in the universe had to have been prescribed for at the beginning of the universe, I am saying…”

Yes, obviously, and I am sure everybody else would agree with you, if you said it clearly. There has to be a start point for this physical existence which we are aware of. Before that start point we can never know what occurred. After that start point everything that has occurred is a function of cause and effect, ie it is determined by the start point.

“it is prudent to make certain that scientists limit their miracles in their descriptions of the nature of the universe to that one single miracle”

Yes, again obviously, and everyone would agree with you, especially if you stopped using the word “miracle”. The two things we can never know is 1) what was before it started/why it started, 2) anything that is a possible alternative to what we can know (the first point being a specific example of this point).

The real point is that scientists will continue to make incorrect presumptions and generate flawed assertions, so long as they do not understand the nature of the physical existence which we can know. Or put another way, what are the underlying ‘rules’ of knowledge.

Where your argument collapses is in your depiction of theory and theorising. In effect, what you are presuming is that there is some ‘direct access’ to reality, ie there is something which can be set up as an incontrovertible reference to judge validity. This is not what happens. We can only have knowledge of the physical existence which we can potentially know. Leaving aside deliberate intrusion of assertion or genuine mistakes, we can only attain that by a compilation process, ie comparing knowledge and building on ‘best fit’. Ultimately, if we access all the knowledge available on any given aspect then what we know can be deemed to have changed from ‘best fit’ to ‘the equivalent of’. So theory is not inherently flawed, if based on the correct presumptions and following due process.

Thanks. Sort of batting ideas around as to what to write. My personal situation has been chaotic lately and hopefully I'll have time to come up with something in May. June looks to be busy as well. Part of the problem is that in many ways, this topic has much in common with the digital vs, analog contest and it's not a particular area of thought I've come up with much new thinking since then. Yes, I do probably see it as bit from it, but as a dichotomy, in that both are fundamentally necessary. The problem is they are conceptually opposed, so there is the tendency to think of the "it." the continuity as something of a linear function, when it seems more of a non-linear field situation. So much of our thought process is inherently linear, cause and effect, narrative. The non-linear field situation isn't so direct and we end up with all these non-local concepts, because we really can't isolate all the feedback, etc.

“"What may or may not be beyond the limit, we can never know." Therefore open-ended”.

For heaven’s sake John. No. By definition, if A, there is always the possibility of not-A. It is only a possibility. But we cannot know not-A anyway, ie what is, possibly, an alternative existence not knowable to us. What we can know is not open ended, and it is determined by a physical process.

I think I have changed my mind for my subject for the essay contest. I may go to the roots of physics' information theory using entropy as the vehicle. Entropy was the pathway used historically to move from mechanical physics to statistical physics. I have original work on this. I can explain both thermodynamic entropy and Boltzmann's entropy. The next step is statistical entropy including microstates. There already exists simplified examples that might help me fit this into a short essay: Maxwell's Demon and Szilard's solution. Perhaps I can present these from a new prospective. One of the suggested subjects is: What is information. I think I may take a shot at answering that question for physics.

What we can know is finite. What does it prove to insist this is the totality of reality? Should we not press on into the unknown?

James,

It is a good approach, relating information to the properties of the actual physical energy manifesting it. I have to adimt to a certain amount of discouragement, given the extent to which the field of physics is intent on this modern version of counting angels on the head of a pin. A good example is further down this thread, in the subthread starting at Apr. 10, 2013 @ 21:19, where Tom cannot seem to disprove my point that assuming a constant speed of light in relation to an expanding universe is a contradiction, yet this doesn't seem to bother him. Like much of the current field, problems that can't be glossed over are ignored. The energy of insitutional momentum overwhelms any logical refutation. The irony here is they physically manifest the same properties they intellectually ignore. Energy manifests information, as information defines energy. As they say, you can't fight city hall.

“What we can know is finite. What does it prove to insist this is the totality of reality? Should we not press on into the unknown?”

You have contradicted yourself. And another response is: how can we know something that is impossible for us to know??? There is a finite potentiality of knowledge available, this is the equivalent of existence, for us. The “unknown” is just that which we have not established yet, not what is for ever unknowable. And I might add there, because language reflects a certain way of conceptualising existence, this does not imply that ‘unknowable’ exists. It is the possibility of an alternative to knowable. If A, there is always the possibility of not-A.

Everyone participating believes they are contributing important new thoughts that, when explained, should easily attract serious attention including that of professionals. It appears to me that even the professionals feel that way. yet each year many essays by professionals rate scores of average or even less. I am repeatedly amazed by this. Late in the contests, I have tested the...

Everyone participating believes they are contributing important new thoughts that, when explained, should easily attract serious attention including that of professionals. It appears to me that even the professionals feel that way. yet each year many essays by professionals rate scores of average or even less. I am repeatedly amazed by this. Late in the contests, I have tested the rating system by reviewing PHD essays near the bottom of the community ratings. I make comments about what I feel that I recognize are important insights. Then I give them a rating of 10. The test is to see how far up in the community ratings they rise. They move maybe ten places, perhaps fifteen. I assume that means they have already been rated seriously low by other participants many of whom are amatuers. I hope that they return because it is the participation of PHDs that makes these contests worth particpating in. If they do not return, I understand why. My opinion is that both amatuers and professionals must keep repeating themselves in fresh ways. Both groups are up against those who have such strong name recognition, that whatever novel thought they share is received well. I don't mean this to be disrespectful to those with easy name recognition. They do know much more about the subject such that they supoport their cases with quality theoretical physics. The fact that I do not share the same level of appreciation for what constitutes theoretical physics doesn't detract from their contributions at all. I even give them high ratings out of appreciation for them sharing their ideas here.

So I hope you submit an essay. I would think that you could write a novel essay about the nature of information. One reason or saying this is your view about a relationship between energy and information. Also about gravity, meaning space flowing toward matter and information energy slowing outward. and energy, thus perhaps suggesting a relationship between gravity and information. I have wondered about something other than that perspective. You write about time being a representation, perhpas an emergent property, of activity. You also analogize time and temperature. Here is what I wonder about what you might say. Information, delievered by photons, is information about the acceleration of charged particles. Acceleration is change of velocity. Velocity is change of distance with respect to time. Direction is also included in both velocity and change of velocity. What might your perspective be about change of velocity with repect to time considering your definition and perspective on what constitutes time. What might you put into the denominator in place of 'time'? It seems to me that it should be possible, even with relatively simple math, to suggest alternative forms of expression for photon carried information.

You know my view is different from yours, but, I would find it interesting to see what you could do toward explaining the nature of information. Or perhaps, at least suggesting new perspectives.

I am not going to attempt corrections or improvements to this message. Recently, I find that my messages, when being altered, lose letters and even words.

In prior discussions we had debates about the nature of knowledge and my position is that it develops upward and eventually decays. Alot of this is from personal experience, both of my own thoughts and of the abilities and development of those around me. Given this view, I try to stay within my current abilities and they have been seriously beaten on, physically, emotionally,...

In prior discussions we had debates about the nature of knowledge and my position is that it develops upward and eventually decays. Alot of this is from personal experience, both of my own thoughts and of the abilities and development of those around me. Given this view, I try to stay within my current abilities and they have been seriously beaten on, physically, emotionally, neurologically etc. Not bringing up old debates, but to put my situation in context. I try to stay within my own limits , as they are now, since that enables me to be as insightful as I can, as opposed to going back to someplace I may have been in the past. I am working on, in my head, an essay. The parts seem to be coming into focus, but not how they will fit together. These things come in their own good time.

" Acceleration is change of velocity. Velocity is change of distance with respect to time. Direction is also included in both velocity and change of velocity. What might your perspective be about change of velocity with repect to time considering your definition and perspective on what constitutes time."

Just look at this in terms of how you describe it, as changes in motion. The effect is that such factors might speed up or slow a process, much as headwinds will slow a boat or plane, relative to more fixed positions. Time is the variable, not fixed. It emerges from the action. That's why I keep emphasizing the events, points of measure and resulting intervals, going future to past. It is all about what is happening, the present. The problem is our mind is very much a function of recording the events. Physicists like to say physics is non-intuitive, yet what is most intuitive is the sequence of events. So the real physics is the underlaying processes creating these events, not the vector that emerges from our perception of them.

This doesn't mean we can replace time as a form of measure, any more than there is a conceptual alternative for the concept of temperature. We are not looking to replace the denominator, so much as understand its relation to the numerator. Consider the ancient viewpoint of the sun moving across the sky. In that equation, the earth was the denominator and the sun the numerator. We saw the sun as the variable, when in fact it was the earth, because we are one with the earth. Similarly the current view of time, as sequence of events, treats the events as the denominator and the present as the numerator, so the present gets broken into myriad events, but if we make the present the denominator, then the events are a entirely function of the present.

I will leave it alone. My intent had to do with my wondering how your view might effect physical information having a simple mathematical form. That is why I referred to photons. I definitely do not want to put myself in a position of appearing to be explaining your view. It is your explanation of your view that is of interest. That is what you responded with. I look forward to your essay.

Sorry, what was the point of that comment? Though I can guess. You think that this proves your statement that knowledge is inherently subjective. Which it does not. It is only a possibility, and we cannot know it anyway. Nobody is pretending that knowledge encompasses that which we cannot know! The issue is to what extent the knowledge we do have at any time is an accurate representation of what potentially we can know.

What gradually dawn on me is that the concept of structured event (as we proposed it) might be the key to understanding both the temporal and 'informational' part of reality: it seems that the appearance of any spatial event must be guided by its blueprint, 'informational' structured event. If it will turn out out to be true, Paul, than indeed we have "it from bit" (but, of course, without any hollow bits).

Lev, you know I'm a fan. This is nice " ... it seems that the appearance of any spatial event must be guided by its blueprint, 'informational' structured event ..." for several reasons -- one of which is that it accommodates the classical time reversibility of a continuous field. This has vast implications for the quantum mechanics that lies at the foundation of computability -- as well as for the possibility of quantum computing without superposition -- and for QM interpretations that have been marginalized, such as John C. Cramer's transactional interpretation, the Bohm-de Broglie pilot wave theory, Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory and even Everett's many worlds hypothesis -- because all of these share the advantage, over Bell's theorem, of obviating nonlocality by mathematical completeness.

I mean by that, self aware domain sensitivity -- "guided by its blueprint" -- as opposed to assigning nonlocal meaning to vanishing functions obtained by linear numerical implementation of a model. I think ETS restores a dynamic center to the computational art, more in line with how we observe that nature actually works -- much like the non-vanishing torsion of Joy Christian's topological framework that explains quantum correlations locally and naturally.

Then there is the opposing argument that the blueprint arises as a description of the event. Bit from it. It seems as the speciation of complex structure multiplies, it does so in an upward and outward fashion, that is not readily visible from the top down perspective, even to the system itself, since the eventual collapse of this structure is more a fracturing between the hard and evident parts, as the original soft, formative processes evaporate.

Blueprints are static renderings, but nature is inherently dynamic, yet this dynamic is also interactive, so there does arise distinctions and they develop. To assume a foundational blueprint would be a form of Platoism and this simply poses the question of where it comes from, only kicking the can down the road. Wouldn't it be more effective to try to figure out how that blueprint comes into being, as a solidifying structure of dynamic processes?

That the blueprints evolve upward, rather than being handed down from above.

I presented it as contrast to the specific point he was making in the above comment. Bits, ones and zeros, are contrasts within a larger context. I think I understand his larger question, as stated in his initial post:

"Why is it that all objects/processes in Nature fall into the structurally similar classes (of stars, galaxies, stones, trees, etc)? Of course, classes evolve as are all objects. Why has the Universe been organized that way, via classes, from the very beginning?"

How do the seemingly immutable sets, conceptual stuctures and processes develop and evolve?

I'm trying, through previous posts, to broaden the question, rather than answer it specifically. Rather than how did these specific laws, properties, classes develop, but what are laws and properties? Without such contrasts, sets, groups, connections, etc, there is nothing other than a neutral state. One and zero is the primary contrast, between existence and non-existence. Then we have the division of what is, one, two, etc. Then we break it down and have fractions, quantities, etc.

So the issue there seems to be the math arises along with what it describes, since if you have nothing, then, mathematically, you only have zero. No platonic realm of mathematical structure.

So it is a dichotomy. No, I'm not so much taking one side over the other, it, or bit, but treating them as sides of a larger reality.

“The object class of things that are structurally similar, in fact, leads Lev and me to the same conclusion, that time is identical to information”.

Time, which, physically, is actually the rate at which any given physical reality alters and becomes another, is information. It does not physically exist, it is a difference between things that did, illuminating a...

“The object class of things that are structurally similar, in fact, leads Lev and me to the same conclusion, that time is identical to information”.

Time, which, physically, is actually the rate at which any given physical reality alters and becomes another, is information. It does not physically exist, it is a difference between things that did, illuminating a particular aspect thereof, ie the rate of alteration, irrespective of what altered. Timing is, obviously, a system to calibrate that. This has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘classes of objects’. It is to do with whatever ultimately constitutes physical existence and causes alteration.

The differential between information and object is that the former is a representation of the latter. Information is information if it is information about something! Information can, of itself, be an ‘it’ but at the same time be a ‘bit’ in respect of another ‘it’. The most obvious, and important, example of this being light. Light is physically existent, however, given its physical properties, and the fact that it is created by virtue of an interaction with something else which is physically existent, then it is a representation of that. And a detection system has evolved to take advantage of that. Light does not become a representation only when it interacts with something which can convert it to a perception, it has the same physical existence whether it hits an eye or a brick.

We, understandably, conceive physical existence incorrectly. From a higher level of conception we differentiate it into ‘things’ which have certain superficial characteristics, and we deem these to persist in existence, until most of those characteristics cease to manifest. But, physically, this is not what is happening, only what appears to be so at a level of conception which ignores significant areas of alteration. In other words, the White House, or anything else, does not continue to exist over time in the state we perceive. Physically, it is a sequence of physically existent states, each one being different in some (or many) ways.

Which brings me back to the last sentence of the second para. It is the physically existent state which defines physical reality, at any given time. But the physically existent state of what? Maybe what causes the alteration(s) is(are) the substance of itself, or maybe there is some form of ‘inert’ substance, the properties of which are the cause. I do not know, because my generic analysis stops at that point and those doing physics need to establish what is happening. But within ways which correspond with how physical existence, as potentially knowable to us, must occur, and not what is believed in.

John has a point (and I have addressed it in my essay): despite all the talk of "information", we don't know what it is about. Bits are too trivial to say anything interesting about it. The term "information" has been abused, probably, more than any other term in this century. We need some formalism that would remove this very nebulous term and would reveal what's behind it, especially if we expect to see what's underneath the "it". The appeal to 'bits' is absolutely ridiculous.

Space is nothing, which gives it two attributes; inertia and infinity, since there is no structure limiting or motivating it. So the question pertains to what fills it, the matter and energy. Matter seems drawn to inertia, while energy expands out to infinity, especially if we consider the CMBR as light that has traveled over the horizon line of being redshifted off the visible spectrum by redshift being an effect of distance, not recession. So whatever this substance is, it isdefined by space.

Time, as I keep arguing is a measure of change. The only confusion is that we think of it as the present moving past to future, rather than the changing configuration of that substance in space causing future potential to coalesce into actualities, then be replaced, ie. events going future to past.

Lev,

It does seem, on may occasions and in many forms, that cognition is self-referential. It is a natural, gravitational process of structure tending to condense along paths of least resistance. Sort of like writers writing about writers, or movie producers making movies about movies. So that when those most concerned with elemental forms of knowledge decide reality is information, it should draw some degree of extra consideration.

If time is identical to information, your previously mentioned "blueprint" of spacetime is exactly correspondent to a nonorientable space in which events are oriented by an arrow of time (information) in that event space.

“First of all, the probability that all processes are neatly clustered into classes *by chance* is negligible: their structural similarity requires some informational guidance”

But where is the evidence that they are, is the first question. Especially if one understands what constitutes an ‘object’ and ‘process’. My point was, why the concern that there is something to be explained. In the sense that, given n incidences, there are bound to be similarities and a possible classification of some sort. Another way of expressing this is that given an infinite number, your telephone number will eventually turn up in the sequence, or give a bunch of chimps typewriters and eventually they will type something meaningful.

And what is this “informational guidance”. You seem to be attributing physical existence with some quasi form of divine intervention.

Admittedly I should know, but can you please, in plain English and the minimum number of sentences, explain your concept of “classes”. I doubt if I have to see the “new formal language”. As per my underlying point to Tom, which he keeps dodging by asserting that it is OK if the result is ‘counter intuitive’. The danger here is that without a proper basis which reflects how physical existence must occur, then the premise becomes a metaphysical ‘take’, which is then self-fulfilling.

There are people today who will eventually give the term "scientific" a less than stellar reputation.

It is part of the lifecycle of any entity. Age, legacy cost, bad code, etc. They will not like having their "multiverses" stripped from the lexicon and will fight it.

I'm writing this on a phone and can't look it up, but one of the entries in the recent contest was this totally off the wall idea about looking for advanced civilizations by looking for signs that entire galaxies are being terraformed, by someone who was the head of some ivy league astronomy department. Today I noticed a headline in New Scientist, about searching for just such evidence!!!! Obviously we need credentials to be taken seriously, then it doesn't matter what we say.

On a side note, it doesn't occur to him that to any advanced civilization, the very laws of nature forming the galaxy would likely be the epitome of natural perfection and not need altering.

“Then, Paul, you are arguing that the topic "It from Bit or Bit from It?" is complete nonsense”.

No. I am stating what the concept of time physically is.

“Wheeler's premise is that the entire physical universe is made of information”

Well it is not. So that is another piece of philosophy which needs consigning to the trash can. Unless one has a definition of information that is so broad as to be meaningless.

Within the confines of the closed system of existence within which we are trapped, we receive physically independent existent input. This, eg light, noise, vibration, etc, is, although physically existent, information, because the physical process which creates it, ie the physical interaction with something else, makes it so, ie it is a representation of that something else. That is why a variety of sensory systems have evolved which can convert this, if received, to a perception of what was received. Evolution did not create these representations (ie information), it is a reaction to their existence, in order to give the possessors of this capability an advantage. Neither do these representations alter in any physical way, because they do not reach a sensory system. Indeed, I would say only a very very small percentage do. Now, the physically existent something which is being represented cannot be described as information, otherwise, as I said, the label becomes pointless.

I agree with you that, unfortunately, today---due to the fact that we are in the midst of an unrecognized yet unprecedented scientific crisis---an increasing number of scientists allow themselves to speculate unscientifically. In fact, it became fashionable to do so. But I suggest that this is a typical sign of that crisis, and we should not fall into that trap.

Paul: "Admittedly I should know, but can you please, in plain English and the minimum number of sentences, explain your concept of “classes”. I doubt if I have to see the “new formal language”."

Paul, I'd like to be frank with you, may I?

First of all, one must understand a very very basic point: without some kind of formal language there was no past, there is no present, and there will not be any future science. Our spoken languages are not suited at all to deal adequately with the (scientific) reality.

Of course, once the formal language is there, we can talk, and talk, and talk about that reality. So you do "have to see the 'new formal language'.”

Are you following me?

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Now, let me try to convey to you *informally* my idea of class (and this my idea). I propose to view class as a collection of objects/processes that share a common generative, or 'informational', mechanism that is responsible for their production. If yo want to have a more concrete image, consider the 'production' of a biological organism.

That it is unrecognized is perhaps the greatest irony, given the extent to which it follows basic physical patterns. You know you are at the crest of the wave when it is mostly foam and bubbles.

I appreciate the informal description you gave Paul. In biological terms, the language is the genes. Would you consider it more of a branching process, as genetic processes are originally considered, or more of a networking process, with constant trading around, as is currently coming to be seen?

It seems to me there is much of both, as particular "classes" tend to be more of a branching process of continuation, while they are also embedded within a larger ecosystem, that is constantly subverting and testing this tendency toward speciation. The action is linear, while the reaction is non-linear.

The key concept related to classes is that of *class representation*, which is basically a specification of a class generating process. The new formal language allows it to be very flexible: each object/process is being specified as an admissible sequence of (informational) events. But such specification also allows for the interaction with other classes. The informational constraints for a generating process allow for *some* other events (from other class generating processes) to intervene, so that some class generating processes can 'safely' interact with each other without disrupting the corresponding generating processes.

No. However, you do make a point, ie “Our spoken languages are not suited at all to deal adequately with the (scientific) reality”. This I have referred to many times before, and most recently in a post above when I state that our conceptualisation of reality is flawed. And hence the very structure of our language embodies this flaw. Which...

No. However, you do make a point, ie “Our spoken languages are not suited at all to deal adequately with the (scientific) reality”. This I have referred to many times before, and most recently in a post above when I state that our conceptualisation of reality is flawed. And hence the very structure of our language embodies this flaw. Which makes it difficult for someone like me to use this tool to, generically, explain it properly. Now, whether we need a new language, or a new maths, or a new graphics is a moot point, ie as opposed to ‘reassembling’ these in a way which corresponds with reality.

Here is an example. The bush in your garden is altering, in respect of size, colour, leaves, etc. At any given time, these different physically existent states do not co-exist. The bush with green leaves does not exist at the same time as the bush with yellowed leaves. There is only ever one definitive physically existent state in the sequence in existence at any given time. Which means that the statement: ‘the bush in your garden is altering’ is incorrect, physically. And somewhat obviously so. Because if something is altering, then it is something else. At first sight this might appear semantics, but for physics, which is supposed to be analysing physical existence, as is, this is critical. There is no something changing. There is something, then there is something else, which is different. Each physically existent state is different. What we are doing, and need to do in order to make simple sense of existence and ‘get on with life’ is conceptualising physical reality on the basis of superficial physical characteristics. To refer to your opening paragraph, this means there is only ever a ‘present’. The ‘past’ has ceased to exist in order that the next present in the sequence occurs, and the ‘future’ is non-existent. So the real quest for physics is to identify what ultimately does exist and why is there alteration.

Here is another example of a fundamental flaw in the way we generally conceptualise reality. This is the tendency to reify difference. Distance is an artefact of physically existent entities. It is a difference between them in terms of spatial position. Differences do not exist, as such, the entities do, and they do so in one specific physically existent state at a time. So distance can only involve physically existent states which exist at the same time. That is, it is not possible for there to be a distance, as opposed to some form of conceptual spatial relationship, between something which exists and something else which does not.

However, distance can be expressed conceptually, ie in terms of duration incurred. The concept being that instead of assessing distance as a spatial quantity, it can alternatively be measured as the duration which would have been incurred had any given entity been able to travel along it, either way. But as this is not possible, because there is no duration available during which that can happen, then it must be understood that there is no duration, as such. That is, the result is just an alternative expression to, and the equivalent of, a specific spatial measure. Failure to understand this leads to the flawed application of the equation x = vt.

You then state: “I propose to view class as a collection of objects/processes that share a common generative, or 'informational', mechanism that is responsible for their production”

Now, at the simple level, I do not see what the problem with this is, or what is special about it. We have had an exchange before, and I do have a reference to at least one essay of yours, so I will go and read it. If there are other pieces you would like to refer me to, please point them out.

I am unsure which paper provides a definition of what you think constitutes ‘information’, and therefore need a reference. At present, I cannot relate your response to John to physical existence. In respect of the paper Nature is fundamentally Discrete, which is the one I have a reference to:

““discrete” means anything that is not continuous, i.e. we are dealing with...

I am unsure which paper provides a definition of what you think constitutes ‘information’, and therefore need a reference. At present, I cannot relate your response to John to physical existence. In respect of the paper Nature is fundamentally Discrete, which is the one I have a reference to:

““discrete” means anything that is not continuous, i.e. we are dealing with the

negation of a particular formalism rather than with another, clearly delineated formalism, and when we ask if the nature is discrete, we are simply asking if it is not continuous”.

This commonly held differentiation of continuous and discrete is incorrect. Continuous is just one form of discrete. For anything to occur, there must be something, ie discrete. Continuous actually means just one state, ie there is no alteration. Which is obviously not what is happening. So the examination of continuous vrs discrete is spurious. The real issue is, given discrete, how does alteration occur, and the illusion of continuity arise? And the answer is in the nature of sequence. There is only ever one discrete, because for the successor to exist the predecessor must cease, and each discrete is different. The confusion is in our tendency to think in terms of ‘something changing’, rather than something which is superseded by something else, ie a persistence of existence which does not actually occur.

This means that physical existence is only spatial. Time is associated with alteration, specifically the rate at which that occurs. But alteration is concerned with the difference between realities, not of one. Any given reality (ie physically existent state) does not involve any form of change, in itself (or indeed any form of indefiniteness), otherwise there could be no existence. There must be a discrete. And it is not really a case of, there is space. There is existence, and that necessitates spatial footprint.

I am not sure whether you subscribe to a false conception that keeps arising on this forum. So I will just say it. The subsequent processing of physical input which results in a perception of what was received is irrelevant to the physical circumstance. That process does not involve the alteration of physical form. Physical existence occurred before this processing started. Receipt by something which can utilise it has no impact on physical existence. Existence does not work in ‘retrospect’ or in ‘anticipation’ or what it might interact with. In other words, the light which interacts with an eye is the same as that which would have interacted with a brick, had the latter been in that spatial position instead. The difference is that the brick does not possess an evolved capability to subsequently process the physical input. Another way of putting this is that if all sentient organisms were eliminated, physical existence would continue, there would just be no awareness of it. Awareness does not create it, it is independent of that.

That fits. One other issue, which ties into something of what Paul is getting at; How do you make it fundamentally dynamic and do away with the blocktime assumption of narrative as physically real? Our every thought process is based on this narrative chronology and Spacetime incorporates it as a form of physical dimension, along with the spatial coordinates, yet the actual physical reality is that energy is conserved, so the creation of new forms means the dissolution of old forms.

Just to keep it clear, I'm not advocating Paul's seemingly strobe like process, but that we mentally frame moments in this dynamic process, much like a movie camera taking a series of stills and reconstructing motion from them.

It is this incorporation of the measure of duration, with measures of distance is where I think the train most profoundly left the tracks and until it is re-visited, we will keep wandering off into multiverses.

As for QM, it is that outside clock that is the source of the problems leading to multiworlds, as we go from a determined past into a probabilistic future, as opposed to letting the actions create time, as the probabilities coalesce into actualities.

I feel your pain in trying to explain the constraints of formal language and computability, only to see the dialogue trail off into a muggy swamp of blah-blah-blah ...

Your nicely compact statement -- "The informational constraints for a generating process allow for *some* other events (from other class generating processes) to intervene, so that some class generating processes...

I feel your pain in trying to explain the constraints of formal language and computability, only to see the dialogue trail off into a muggy swamp of blah-blah-blah ...

Your nicely compact statement -- "The informational constraints for a generating process allow for *some* other events (from other class generating processes) to intervene, so that some class generating processes can 'safely' interact with each other without disrupting the corresponding generating processes" -- reminded me that I wrote a paper for NECSI ICCS 2007 on the same theme, inspired by Yaneer Bar-Yam's work in multiscale variety. Excerpted:

3.5 In a seminal paper [Bar-Yam, 2004] challenges the long held notion that the problem of bounded rationality -- i.e., individual human (or, abstractly, individual node) limitations to acquire sufficient information for central control decisions -- might be solved or mitigated by information technology integrated vertically into the system (hierarchical up and down, rather than lateral, communication ). [2004, p. 40]

3.6 Bar-Yam reveals that distributed control -- lateral information -- increases variety. Increased variety increases the coordination strength of the network; i.e., "In considering the requirements of multi-scale variety more generally, we can state that for a system to be effective, it must be able to coordinate the right number of components to serve each task, while allowing the independence of other sets of components to perform their respective tasks without binding the actions of one such set to another." [2004. P. 41]

3.7 The independence of time metrics in an n-dimensional system where time flows on a self avoiding random walk satisfies the multi-scale variety requirement. What we mean, is that the connectedness of the network is preserved in self-similar components that perform cooperative functions independent of the observed state of the system. Subsystems are self delimiting. Thereby, an analytically continuous complex system is tractable to analysis using the tools of discrete functions. This is an obvious crucial requirement for computability.

1. Paul: "Now, whether we need a new language, or a new maths, or a new graphics is a moot point, ie as opposed to ‘reassembling’ these in a way which corresponds with reality."

Paul, this says to me a lot about your stile of thinking, and, I'm afraid, it is not a scientific one. Why? A *fundamentally new* formalism cannot be "constructed by reassembling these in a way which corresponds with reality". However, many people, including many scientists, do not understand what the phrase "new formalism" means. So let's leave it at that.

2. Similar considerations apply to your "This commonly held differentiation of continuous and discrete is incorrect. Continuous is just one form of discrete. For anything to occur, there must be something, ie discrete."

Here you failed to grasp that the term "continuous" is explicated by the formal concept of inner product vector space, but we don't have anything of the same universal kind for the "discrete". That is why we know what "continuous" is and do not know what "discrete" is.

So I recommend that you read up much more on *what is a formalism? and what is a new formalism?*

“One other issue, which ties into something of what Paul is getting at; How do you make it fundamentally dynamic…I'm not advocating Paul's seemingly strobe like process”

“we mentally frame moments..” Now, tell me John. How is a process which receives a physical input and creates a perception of that, a physical process? It does not involve the alteration of physical...

“One other issue, which ties into something of what Paul is getting at; How do you make it fundamentally dynamic…I'm not advocating Paul's seemingly strobe like process”

“we mentally frame moments..” Now, tell me John. How is a process which receives a physical input and creates a perception of that, a physical process? It does not involve the alteration of physical form. The physical form ceases to exist on reception, whether that, in the case of light for example, happens to be an eye or a brick. It is just that the eye can enable that subsequent processing, the brick cannot. In other words, the idea that an explanation to any physical circumstance lies in the subsequent processing, if a representation of it just happens to be received in the first place, and most are not, is incorrect. The sensory system/brain processing can have nothing whatsoever to do with the physical circumstance.

Having avoided that false trail, it becomes necessary to find the answer in the nature of physical existence, and the whole point is to understand that in a sequence discrete is ‘dynamic’, to use your phrase, ie enables alteration. A sequence being a series of discretes. Alteration inherently involves discrete, because there must be something, a discrete, and then something else, another discrete, so that comparison can identify difference (ie alteration). The difference does not exist, the states, which when compared reveal a difference, do. Contrary to the usual view, the continuous form of discrete means nothing ever changes, there is one state in perpetuity. It is continuous. The problem with the usual view being that it is very difficult for people to grasp the fact that there is only one discrete at a time. There is nearly always some ‘shadow’ in the thinking of discretes which have ceased, or worse still, discretes that have not yet occurred, all co-existing. Or the existence is just not sufficiently differentiated, ie what is actually a series of discretes is deemed to be one discrete-a ‘thing’.

1 “A *fundamentally new* formalism cannot be "constructed by reassembling these in a way which corresponds with reality".

Incorrect. Words, numbers, graphics are just representational devices. They can be assembled in a way which correctly depicts reality, ie differently from certain current assemblages.

2 “Here you failed to grasp that the term "continuous" is explicated by the formal concept of inner product vector space…”

Incorrect. I have defined the concept in the context of physical existence (which I have just repeated to John above), not some philosophical ‘take’ thereon. There can only be discrete, because there is something. So continuous is a specific form of discrete where nothing happens, ie there is one state, always, continuously. Referring the notion of continuous to alteration, which can only occur if there is discrete, is pointless. That is the rate of alteration might be constant, it might be variable in any form of permutation, but always occur, eventually. Indeed, it might actually stop and remain in one state after a sequence of alteration.

3 “So I recommend that you read up much more on *what is a formalism? and what is a new formalism?*

As said previously, I am happy to read something which clarifies your concept of information.

Is zero simply a point on a line between 1 and -1, or does it represent something more fundamental?

It seem to me, that the singularity is an attempt to reconstruct the concept of nothing from that mathematical placeholder. Along with the desire to reduce the concept of space to nothing more than a measurement. As I've argued with you many times, when we measure space, be it...

Is zero simply a point on a line between 1 and -1, or does it represent something more fundamental?

It seem to me, that the singularity is an attempt to reconstruct the concept of nothing from that mathematical placeholder. Along with the desire to reduce the concept of space to nothing more than a measurement. As I've argued with you many times, when we measure space, be it line, area or volume, we are still measuring space, yet when we measure time, we are measuring a specific action.

I've also made the point many times that the idea of expanding space still assumes a constant speed of light against which to judge the effect, yet if two points x lightyears apart grow to be 2x lightyears apart, that is an increased amount of stable space, not expanding space.

Then there is the whole discussion about how centrifugal force is a consequence of spin relative to inertia, not some outside set of markers. So even though space doesn't seem to have material qualities, all the complex math available doesn't erase its foundational necessity.

No, you are not going to take me seriously, but in all our conversations, you haven't refuted the above points.

Paul,

If we were to simply leave the shutter of the camera open, the continuous input of light would quickly overwhelm the film and the result would be a white negative. Yes, knowledge is a function of discrete quantities of input and stitching them into a larger, discrete system. That's knowledge. That doesn't negate the essential continuity of the input. Energy also interacts in discrete quantities, but at some level there is always a background tying it all together, or each unit would have to exist as its own universe. It is a dichotomy.

Lev,

While the coalescing formalisms, like any entity, form a linear coherence, it does manifest a character that distinguishes it from the larger context. So it is difficult to make it representative of the whole. For example, capitalism developed as an economic eco-system, in which corporate entities rise and fall. That its unifying foundation is treating monetary units of exchange as commodities in themselves, has turned it into a mechanism of siphoning value out of the rest of the economy and blowing an enormous bubble of notational value, that will eventually implode. The lesson being, be careful of what you take for granted.

"Is zero simply a point on a line between 1 and -1, or does it represent something more fundamental?"

I don't know, John. What do you think?

"It seem to me, that the singularity is an attempt to reconstruct the concept of nothing from that mathematical placeholder."

Why?

"Along with the desire to reduce the concept of space to nothing more than a measurement. As I've argued with you many times, when we measure space, be it line, area or volume, we are still measuring space, yet when we measure time, we are measuring a specific action."

Measuring lengths, areas and volumes are also specific actions.

"I've also made the point many times that the idea of expanding space still assumes a constant speed of light against which to judge the effect, yet if two points x lightyears apart grow to be 2x lightyears apart, that is an increased amount of stable space, not expanding space."

Stable where? What boundary separates a continuously expanding space from any of its parts?

"Then there is the whole discussion about how centrifugal force is a consequence of spin relative to inertia, not some outside set of markers."

Oh. There is a reference in the essay I commented on to another which seemed to concern information, but I could not find it. Also the way in which you started this thread implied you already knew and had written about it, especially given the way Tom joined in.

“when we measure space…we are still measuring space, yet when we measure time, we are measuring a specific action”

When you measure space you are identifying the spatial differential between entities (and indeed in respect of specific dimensions thereof), or you are identifying the relative spatial footprint of an entity. However, there must be ‘space’ for these entities to exist.

When you measure time, you are measuring the rate of alteration, ie the duration difference between different realities. However, there must be alteration and that must alter at a rate.

So although in both cases you are having to measuring something else which enables the inference, they both relate to physically existent features. The difference is that space is concerned with a difference within a reality, time is concerned with a difference between realities.

“If we were to simply leave the shutter…”

It is neither a matter of us doing something, physical existence is independent of us, neither is the analogy of a camera correct. Neither has it anything to do with knowledge, the point was about existence, which must be discrete, otherwise there would be none. The “essential continuity” is a contradiction in terms, neither is it about input.

Although I have sympathy with your point about addressing points as put, you are doing the same. As a way of responding to you I asked you a very simple question which points out the fallacy of this concept that the brain, etc is an influence in the physical circumstance. I then went on, in the context of physical existence, to explain what discrete/continuous can mean, as opposed to what philosophical gloss people want to put on them. And indeed why this, understandably, tends to happen.

Since I had worked as a prof. in computer science department for 25 years, I have written some papers on information processing but none on the relation between physics and "information".

By the way, couple of years ago I bought "Information and the nature of reality" ed. Paul Davies and Niels Gregersen, but was very very disappointed: the reviews of the situation in physics (part II) suggest to me that, despite the rhetoric, very little of "it from bit" transition has taken place. This reminded me about a similar situation in artificial intelligence: much heat and no light. ;-)

Earlier, you stated that "despite all the talk of "information", we don't know what it is about"

I think Shannon provided the only useful insight into what information is about. It is about channel capacity. An analogy could be made with the concept of mass. Mass is not *about* how the mass is used, either to construct atoms, galaxies, insects or human brains. Mass is simply a measure of how much "stuff" is there. For Shannon, information is simply a measure of how much "stuff" must *necessarily* be transmitted in a message, in order to enable an intended, knowledgable recipient, to correctly reconstruct the message. What the message is "about", is irrelevant to the determination of this capacity.

I too have been rather disappointed by physicists lack of understanding of information. In communications theory, a distinction is made between "source coding" and "channel coding". Physicists, in their desire to gain knowledge of "sources", have never appreciated that observational science and theories of measurement, have far more to do with channel coding than source coding.

The distinction is precisely that concerned with what information is about; channel coding is about how one goes about distinguishing between different, simultaneously observed streams of information, coming from multiple sources, only one of which, is the desired source, amongst a number of undesired sources; noise, interference etc..

I guess, I will disappoint you by admitting that I'm not on the side of Shannon's view of "information", although he himself repeatedly warned against attaching a much broader interpretation to his "information".

But let's wait a bit until I submit the essay in which the issues related to this much broader interpretation are addressed.

So if I repeat what I said at the beginning, what is your view: information is a representation of something, ie ‘it’ is something and ‘bit’ is information. Both can be physically existent, ‘it’ must be physically existent, whereas ‘bit’ need not be (ie it could be knowledge). There is an obvious underlying presumption of validity, ie an ‘it’ is not so if it is the function of belief, and information is not such if it does not correspond with the ‘it’ it is representing. Equally obviously, there are processes which cause these, but that is not what differentiates them. And this has nothing whatsoever to do with sensory/brain processing.

I am just finding it very difficult to pin down what you are referring to with the concept 'information'.

You wrote, "Your purpose and your free will come out of nothing. You take it for free and celebrate it as if you have accounted for its existence."

Yes, I most certainly do! Would you rather I see my free will as something I must suffer and pay for? Sorry, that makes no sense to me.

"Now back to my point. Did purpose exist for the origin of the universe?"

It couldn't have, if all its elements are endowed with free will. The purpose of the universe is equal to the purpose of its creation. I agree with Wheeler in principle that ours is a participatory world.

"And in response to your point: What is the cause of free will?"

Free will *is itself* the cause of all that exists. There is no reason to believe that any particle lacks consciousness; we certainly could not say otherwise, merely by observing particle behavior. (See Kakatos and Nadeau, *The Conscious Universe* and Gell-Mann, *The Quark and the Jaguar* as well as Wheeler's research in "it from bit".)

This is a meaningless statement, and actually has all the hallmarks of relating to an invalid conceptualisation. Everything has 'structure', this is not the determinant which delineates information from whatever it is information of.

It is important to note that we can only have knowledge of/information about even the physical existence which is potentially knowable to us, ie let alone what might possibly exist but we can never know (directly or indirectly). In other words, either our knowledge of physical existence is 'the best available at that time', or it ultimately becomes when no new knowledge arises, the equivalent of what it is. However, this does not mean that everything is information, otherwise the label is pointless.

I am not saying this is what you are thinking, because I do not know what you are thinking. Despite your posts to John, and your opening gambit for this thread: "Let me try an impossible task: to motivate you to take seriously "it from bit" idea, but of course without taking bits themselves seriously"

While I agree with this statement and have made the same comparision before, it does contain a lot of conceptual meaning. Information can be thought of isolation, as somehow separate from its medium, yet structure is both medium and message. It is load bearing. This means the information is dependent on the physical properties of the meduim. Such as there can be no blocktime, as the informational capacity of the medium is finite and so since all medium carries some information, even if it is neutral or default, creating new information means erasing old information. If we think of it in terms of a timeline, the information, once created, recedes into the past, as new information is created, whether it remains recorded/remembered, or not. Meanwhile the medium is constantly dynamically moving/ creating new information. Thus the medium goes past to future, as the message goes future to past. Much as our brain, as medium, goes past to future, while its thoughts, the message, go future to past.

“A dog is structured like a cat, except for the information we get that it isn't”

Incorrect. A dog is not structured like a cat. Depending on the level at which conceptualisation is effected, one can deem all sorts of entities to be the ‘same’. But this is meaningless, because they only exist in one physically existent form. And of course you are talking in terms of types anyway, not physically existent entities, because any given dog is not structurally identical to any other given dog, let alone a cat.

You are implying that all physical existence is information, which as I pointed out above is a misconception, based on the fact that we can only have knowledge of/information about physical existence, and a pointless definition of information.

I've been trying to tell you what I think. Obviously not much of it sinks in.

"the singularity is an attempt to reconstruct the concept of nothing from that mathematical placeholder."

Why?"

The idea of space as three dimensional originates from modeling it as a three vector coordinate system, which requires the zero point. Since it seems to be a given that space is only a measure of relative reference points, with no ultimate or abolute condition, then if all points originate from one location, space is effectively created as they move apart. Thus a zero spatial measurement is zero space. It is a conveniently self referential idea, but it has lots of holes, which have had to be patched with everything from inflation to dark energy. Inflation to explain why space is at its most fundamental measures, flat. Background radiation, sum of curvatures, etc. Dark matter to match theory to observation of curvature. Dark energy to theory with observations of redshift. Would it really destroy the practice of science to try to model a theory with space as a given? We have tried just about everything else.

"Measuring lengths, areas and volumes are also specific actions."

The measure, the ruler, is static, while the clock, the measure of time, is dynamic. Now you can stretch or contract the ruler by placing it in a dynamic context, but conceptually the ruler is still a single, static unit, while the clock is a dynamic relation between two units; one preforming a regular motion and one static and present.

"Stable where? What boundary separates a continuously expanding space from any of its parts?"

Exactly!!!! How do you have space measured by a constant speed of light, yet expanding in terms of those units of measure???? Maybe the whole theory has to go back to the drawing board and develop a model without such cognitive dissonance. (If those distant galaxies are going to evetually disappear over the horizon of visability, then that is an increasing distance, as measured by lightyears, not the actual space expanding. The ruler is not being stretched.)

"Centrifugal force is a fictional force."

Tell that to the astronauts on a spinning space station. It feels an awful lot like gravity to them. Is gravity a fictional force as well, since we cannot decide if it is fundamental, or the effect of deeper processes, as is centrifugal force? Is heat a fictional force, since it can be due to any number of sources, processes, measures, etc. Now of course the fabric of spacetime is not fictional, since we can measure the bending of starlight, therefore the universe can expand, we can time travel through wormholes and everything can be explained in terms of multiverses.

"Then what is 'nothing' made of?"

Nothing.

"One can hardly refute ill formed statements."

If you can't refute an ill formed statement, what kind can you refute?

Paul,

We seem to be in agree ment through the first two paragraphs, then hit the roadblock of our point of disagreement, so since I have to run I'll leave it at that. You might want to consider George Ellis' contest entry on top down causality though.

You are not measuring space, but things, which implies space. However, this is not where the concept of 3 dimension stems from. This is just the ultimate simplification of reality that retains ontological correctness at that level of conceptualisation. In reality there are far more. Dimension is a specific aspect of spatial footprint. At the existential level, the number of...

You are not measuring space, but things, which implies space. However, this is not where the concept of 3 dimension stems from. This is just the ultimate simplification of reality that retains ontological correctness at that level of conceptualisation. In reality there are far more. Dimension is a specific aspect of spatial footprint. At the existential level, the number of possible dimensions is half the number of possible directions that the substance with the smallest spatial footprint could travel from any single spatial point. This notion of spatial point, and footprint, relating to the fact that the reference for measuring space is a spatial matrix via which we ‘divide’ any given reality, and ‘locate’ by associating some point thereof with an existent entity.

You are also getting confused over measuring devices and references. Timing devices just tell the time, that is, the measuring reference is a conceptual constant rate of change. This is why, within the realms of practicality, these devices must be synchronised, otherwise the system is useless. Same applies to spatial devices, rulers etc, just tell the distance. The reference, as stated above, is a conceptual spayial matrix which we impose on a reality. The ‘synchronisation’ here being the making of rulers, etc to an acceptable level of accuracy and imperviousness to physical influences, eg heat.

No I do not need to consider Ellis’ concept, because subsequent processing of physical input received is irrelevant to physical circumstance, and physical existence does not work ‘backwards’, nor does it involve the ‘future’. Any given existence (ie ‘present’) must be a function of the previous present. Indeed, in respect of any specific aspect thereof, only certain physically existent factors could be the potential cause, because physics does not involve ‘jumping’ physical circumstances. That is, it must be in a specific spatial position and a specific place in the sequence order. Neither can something have physical influence unless it is physically existent.

You write, "The idea of space as three dimensional originates from modeling it as a three vector coordinate system, which requires the zero point."

Where did you get that idea? Just making it up as you go along? You said "the singularity is an attempt to reconstruct the concept of nothing from that mathematical placeholder."

I asked, "Why?"

Now you're saying that the number zero is a singularity, and the singularity is equivalent to a dimensionless point? You want to stick with that story or go fish some more?

"Since it seems to be a given that space is only a measure of relative reference points, with no ultimate or abolute condition, then if all points originate from one location, space is effectively created as they move apart. Thus a zero spatial measurement is zero space. It is a conveniently self referential idea, but it has lots of holes, which have had to be patched with everything from inflation to dark energy. Inflation to explain why space is at its most fundamental measures, flat. Background radiation, sum of curvatures, etc. Dark matter to match theory to observation of curvature. Dark energy to theory with observations of redshift. Would it really destroy the practice of science to try to model a theory with space as a given? We have tried just about everything else."

Yes, I see you are just making it up as you go along.

"Measuring lengths, areas and volumes are also specific actions."

The measure, the ruler, is static, while the clock, the measure of time, is dynamic."

Really? You don't need to do anything to measure? It just magically happens?

"Now you can stretch or contract the ruler by placing it in a dynamic context, but conceptually the ruler is still a single, static unit, while the clock is a dynamic relation between two units; one preforming a regular motion and one static and present."

You can stretch or contract the ruler, yet it is static. I guessed it -- magic.

"Stable where? What boundary separates a continuously expanding space from any of its parts?"

Exactly!!!!"

O goody.

"How do you have space measured by a constant speed of light, yet expanding in terms of those units of measure????"

Because space doesn't expand at the constant speed of light.

"Maybe the whole theory has to go back to the drawing board and develop a model without such cognitive dissonance. (If those distant galaxies are going to evetually disappear over the horizon of visability, then that is an increasing distance, as measured by lightyears, not the actual space expanding. The ruler is not being stretched.)"

Right. The ruler is a stretchy, static thing that doesn't stretch. Got it.

"Centrifugal force is a fictional force."

Tell that to the astronauts on a spinning space station."

They're engineers. They already know.

"It feels an awful lot like gravity to them."

Artificial gravity.

"Is gravity a fictional force as well, since we cannot decide if it is fundamental, or the effect of deeper processes, as is centrifugal force?"

Gravity isn't a force.

"Is heat a fictional force, since it can be due to any number of sources, processes, measures, etc. Now of course the fabric of spacetime is not fictional, since we can measure the bending of starlight, therefore the universe can expand, we can time travel through wormholes and everything can be explained in terms of multiverses."

Let me see if I can parse this logic: Heat is a force and there is no fabric of spacetime. Therefore, we can travel in time through multiverses. I would rush to publish if I were you.

"Then what is 'nothing' made of?"

Nothing."

But nevertheless, you claim that nothing possesses "inertia and infinity." How does that happen?

"One can hardly refute ill formed statements."

If you can't refute an ill formed statement, what kind can you refute?"

Meaningful statements. Got any?

Look, John, I know there's a little bit of truth in some of the things you say. That's the trouble -- if you would refrain from stopping short of a true statement just so you can vent your spleen against the deluded physics establishment, you might realize that your own delusions are holding you back.

I fully appreciate the pushback. I know I'm not an expert. Yes, I do try to put together a bunch of ideas I know I'm not fluent in and am in water far beyond my depth. Why? Am I delusional? Possibly.

So why do I do it? Because I get into these conversations making one very basic and simple point and then get terribly wound up in the consequences.

The point is whether time is this vector from past to future, or the effect of dynamic change. So laugh. Go believe your fabric of spacetime and all its wormholes, multiverses and all wonder of unicorn thinking.

Me, I think there is something seriously wrong with the picture and if I try to come up with some impressionistic ideas from the various puzzle pieces floating around, it really is no crime. Even to the professionals, given what they come up with. We all do live in this reality. Why do various groups think they have a monopoly on understanding or owning it?

""How do you have space measured by a constant speed of light, yet expanding in terms of those units of measure????"

Because space doesn't expand at the constant speed of light."

I'm not saying space is expanding at the speed of light. I'm saying the theory assumes two different concepts of space. One, based on redshift, that considers space to be expanding and one, based on the speed of light, that assumes a constant against which to judge this expansion. In other words, if those galaxies are moving apart in lightyears, that assumes a constant unit of distance, of which there are more of. So the space, as measured in lightyears, isn't expanding, rather the distance is increasing.

Since this seems to be such a difficult concept for you to understand, let's put it in terms of basic doppler shift. The train moving away isn't stretching the space, but is moving in space, such that what was in front of it, is now behind it. Thus while there is increased distance, it is not expanded space.

The problem this poses for Big Bang theory is that if it is an expansion "in" space, then it would appear that we are at the center of the universe. Thus it has to be an expansion "of" space. Yet this is refuted by the necessity of a constant speed of light.

The logical solution is that redshift is some form of optical effect, much as the curvature of light by gravity is optics, since the actual source of the light is not being moved or distorted simply because it appears that way to us. So just because something appears to move, doesn't always mean it does.

"The logical solution is that redshift is some form of optical effect, much as the curvature of light by gravity is optics, since the actual source of the light is not being moved or distorted simply because it appears that way to us. So just because something appears to move, doesn't always mean it does."

True. Which entirely contradicts your contention, " ... two different concepts of space. One, based on redshift, that considers space to be expanding and one, based on the speed of light, that assumes a constant against which to judge this expansion."

The predominance of redshifted galaxies -- those moving away from us -- implies expanding space because the distance between the galactic centers of mass is increasing. In some frames this distance will increase much faster than the speed of light. The speed of light constant is a limit on the ability of bodies to communicate, i.e., to influence each other's motion. It has nothing to do with the expansion of the universe or how we measure it. Space is and always has been based on systems of coordinate points, one concept.

I'm not laughing at you. I'm not discounting what you say. Indeed, I agree with much of it, up to the point where you contradict yourself. Would I see those contradictions if I weren't reading carefully and taking you seriously?

Lightyears, lightseconds, astronomical units, and the like are bounded intervals that we use to limit measures to what we can comprehend. They are...

I'm not laughing at you. I'm not discounting what you say. Indeed, I agree with much of it, up to the point where you contradict yourself. Would I see those contradictions if I weren't reading carefully and taking you seriously?

Lightyears, lightseconds, astronomical units, and the like are bounded intervals that we use to limit measures to what we can comprehend. They are *our* standards, not nature's -- we know that. We know that we arbitrarily specify domain, limit and function -- that mathematics, to which measurement standards belong, represents a model of reality and not "reality itself," for whatever that means. When we compare the results of our models with the results of the changes in relative position of points within the domain, we come up with a theory in which the theoretical predictions correspond (or not) to the real measures; theory and physical result have to share the same domain and the same standards of measure.

Our " ... fabric of spacetime and all its wormholes, multiverses and all wonder of unicorn thinking ..." don't have to be real. They are all attempts to extend the domain, in order to explain things that we observe and our theoretical models don't capture.

At the end of the day, science retains models and theories that match the phenomena they predict, and discards those that don't. One doesn't *know* which model is viable, however, until it comes to a showdown of contradictory ideas. The most famous example I know, is between Hoyle's steady state universe and the big bang model -- until 1965 when Penzias and Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation, the theories shared equal status; because the radiation contradicts the steady state model and supports big bang, most cosmologists consider big bang theory decisive, at least until a more viable model possibly replaces it.

To bring this closer to home -- attempts to make standard quantum theory a complete theory of how nature works include Steven Giddings' "spacetime is doomed" scenario, to which I and many others object because we see no reason to reject relativity and embrace nonlocality, and many reasons to argue otherwise. This could be another "showdown" moment in science comparable to the big bang-steady state debate.

Say for a second that you were considering redshift as an optical effect of distance. Wouldn't the background radiation solve Olber's paradox?

Not asking you to agree, just to consider the idea from an objective point of view. I don't know. I'm not conversant in light spectrum. What would the spectrum of light that was coming from a source redshifted completely off the visible spectrum "look" like?

Wouldn't the irregularities in the background radiation correspond to the imprint of galactic sources?

You write: "Say for a second that you were considering redshift as an optical effect of distance. Wouldn't the background radiation solve Olber's paradox?"

Why? Because the CMBR represents the dim dying embers of a big bang event, radiated backward in time from when the sky was filled with bright radiation? Possibly! Though I wonder how time would be stretched independent of...

You write: "Say for a second that you were considering redshift as an optical effect of distance. Wouldn't the background radiation solve Olber's paradox?"

Why? Because the CMBR represents the dim dying embers of a big bang event, radiated backward in time from when the sky was filled with bright radiation? Possibly! Though I wonder how time would be stretched independent of space; i.e., space is the medium that informs us that light waves are shifted to the red end of the spectrum, that we interpret as moving away from us observers. Just possibly, as you imply, space could be static and the relic radiation reflected back to the origin with low energy. This creates another paradox, however -- of how a high energy origin reduces to a low energy origin within a spatial domain that doesn't change in time.

Not bad, dude. You're always at your best when you limit your focus.

"Not asking you to agree, just to consider the idea from an objective point of view. I don't know. I'm not conversant in light spectrum. What would the spectrum of light that was coming from a source redshifted completely off the visible spectrum 'look' like?"

A black hole. Now this is something not entirely new. I remember much to-do (in the 70s, IIRC), from cosmologists who suggested that we live in the interior of a black hole.

"Wouldn't the irregularities in the background radiation correspond to the imprint of galactic sources?"

Well, we know that the radiation is nearly smooth. So I guess if there is slight anisotropy -- assuming the CMBR as a backward in time reflection from a bounded space -- maybe there is just enough irregularity at the origin to explain the distribution pattern of galaxies within that bound as slight energy differentials at the origin.

I would encourage you to go ahead with the idea, and stay focused on the singular problem. Many years ago, David Finkelstein as a journal editor, gave me the most useful advice I have ever gotten before or since in the form of a handwritten rejection note that read: "Plausible physical ideas, not accompanied by a mathematical theory that would incorporate them." Take that advice for what it's worth. Doing the math gives one feedback on contradictions that need a work-around or a re-do. In the world of journal editors, they truly don't make 'em like that anymore. I wish they did.

"Lightyears, lightseconds, astronomical units, and the like are bounded intervals that we use to limit measures to what we can comprehend."

Yes, but those measures are based on what is taken to be one of natures constants, which we then use to compare to the theory that space expands.

"At the end of the day, science retains models and theories that match the phenomena they predict, and discards those that don't."

So why, when theory doens't match observation, such as not being able to explain why the CMBR is so flat, or why the rate of expansion isn't slowing according to theory, does the establishment automatically add a patch, such as inflation, or dark energy, rather than raising questions about the theory? It seems to be that institutional inertia has to be considered, when so many people, over generations, are commited to the theory. Is there no breaking mechanism, other than eventually running over the cliff into professional absurdity?

"This could be another "showdown" moment in science comparable to the big bang-steady state debate."

It is a showdown between QM and relativity because physics appears to be at a cross roads, but what if the problem is with both sides of that debate? How long before they do go back and really review the situation from the bottom up?

" Because the CMBR represents the dim dying embers of a big bang event, radiated backward in time from when the sky was filled with bright radiation?"

Remember I'm arguing for an infinite, eternal universe, so I'm asking if this CMBR would simply be the sky filling light Olber hypothesized must come from an infinity of stars/galaxies. In other words, a steady state explanation for the background radiation.

" of how a high energy origin reduces to a low energy origin within a spatial domain that doesn't change in time."

Wouldn't any proposed source, BB, stars/galaxies, be high energy? So as the volume increases, the temperature declines(ideal gas laws) Keeping in mind the light from a single source has to fill ever more volume with increasing radius. As would a BB expansion fill ever more volume as the singular universe expands. Thus it reduces to 3.7k. Remember also that in order to make theory match observation, inflation had to be added and recently even Paul Steinhardt has been saying inflation creates as many or more problems than it solves.

"A black hole."

So it would be black body radiation, just as is observed. Yes?

" maybe there is just enough irregularity at the origin to explain the distribution pattern of galaxies within that bound as slight energy differentials at the origin."

Again, I'm modeling an infinite universe, so would it be the shadows of normal galaxies whose light has been redshifted off the visible spectrum, not the birthing clouds of infant galaxies?

"I would encourage you to go ahead with the idea, and stay focused on the singular problem."

I know this might seem weird in our individualistic culture, but I really want to be part of a larger effort for a variety of reasons, both personal and tactical. Obviously the establishment doesn't take ideas which contradict significant premises seriously, even from those with real credentials, Two, if anyone were to actually overthrow spacetime and the physical, cosmological and philosophic assumptions built on it, the public blowback would be quite significant and I don't like dealing with many people. Not that I have anything against attention, but it does quickly overload my senses. If someone were to take this idea from what I've written on FQXi, succeeded in getting it taken seriously and gave me some credit, it would still be alot for me to handle. Not to sound pretentious, to someone who doesn't agree with the idea, it is just that I do try to think through every possible angle.

"Space is and always has been based on systems of coordinate points, one concept."

"Lightyears, lightseconds, astronomical units, and the like are bounded intervals that we use to limit measures to what we can comprehend."

I'm assuming you must think my point is incorrect, or it would present a hole in cosmological theory big enough to drive an earthmover through and science is not about sweeping such details under the rug as though they were a molested child. I'm just trying to figure out how you think it is wrong.

Space is based on systems of coordinate points and with lightspeed, these points are relatively stable. That is why it is trusted as a constant unit of measure. Yet with redshift, these points appear to be moving apart. So which is the one concept of space and which is happening within space? Or what am I missing?

Which must ultimately prevail; the profession of science, or the principle of scientific inquiry?

Space is a necessity for existence, but we can only assign it via entities. In other words, distance is a difference between entities in terms of spatial position, ie it does not exist, in itself. The critical point here being that entities only exist in one physically existent state at a time, which is subject to very rapid alteration. Therefore, any given distance is always unique, since it reflects a definitive physically existent circumstance at a given time.

Now, distance can be expressed conceptually in terms of duration incurred. The concept being that it can be measured as the duration which would have been incurred had any given entity been able to travel along it, either way. But as this is not possible, because there is no duration available during which that can actually happen, then it must be understood that there is no duration, as such. That is, the result is just an alternative expression to, and the equivalent of, a specific spatial measure. Misunderstanding this leads to the flawed application of the equation x = vt.

It does seem to me this contest raises the same essential arguments as the analog, vs. digital contest.

My view of what Cristi is defending, of Wheeler's argument, is the inherent subjectivity of knowledge. That objective knowledge is fundamentally a contradiction of terms. There is no "God's eye" view, or as Tegmark states it, the bird's eye view. Knowledge is focus and specificity. Information is a unit of knowledge. We build our store of knowledge out of these discrete units/measurements. That is what the rational left brain does. It is up to the non-linear right brain to sense the connectivity of these points of information.

“It does seem to me this contest raises the same essential arguments as the analog, vs. digital contest”

Obviously. Because although the form of words differs, the question really revolves around what is physical existence, and how does it occur. Without that, one cannot discern whether it is ‘digital or analog’, the differentiation between occurrence and information thereof, and then how one can extrapolate the former from the latter, etc, etc.

Put simply, one needs to know what ‘it’ is first, otherwise everything else can become ‘noise’, and trying to address one aspect at a time is not an efficient way of proceeding. Indeed, reading the piece, yet again bring into focus the essential issues which need to be resolved in a cohesive manner:

-there is only one form of physical existence, it does not operate in radically different ways depending on size, or whatever. An example being Tom’s cat/dog. The real point here is that these do not exist, physically. They are a conception of existence at a much higher level than what actually occurs, ie they are based on superficial physical attributes. Dog/cat, is really a sequence of physically existent states, which gives, like all such ‘objects’, the illusion of persistence.

-we can only have knowledge of/information about, ie we cannot ‘directly access’ reality. Hence we are comparing knowledge with other knowledge and eventually arriving at something which we can deem to be the equivalent of ‘it’, because we are in an existentially closed system. But this does not mean that ‘everything is information’, it is still independent, but possibly limited. Just that the differentiation between it and information can only have meaning within that closed system.

-the processing by the sensory system/brain of the independent physical input received is of no consequence to the physical circumstance, all it does is enable awareness of the input which the creation of a perception of it.

I have entered my essay into contest on the 7th of April, using email/password from year 2011. The webform didn't seem to take any time to upload a pdf file, making me suspicious of a possible technical fault. Can you check that a file was actually received on your side. And if no, I am attaching it to this comment.

Agreed. I could not get the counter to work neither did the form give the appearance that it had received any substance. But I presumed this was my lack of techical knowledge, as I got a 'received' response, and I also presume they are awaiting a number of receipts before publishing. Mine was submitted on the 2nd

I thought that by announcing the priority given to FQXi members in this contest, the acceptance criteria might also be tightened, but it appears that exactly the opposite is the case! Is the number of the entries so important that it overrides the most important consideration---the quality of the entries?

No wonder that one of the main points discussed after the last contest---the quality of the essay evaluation---cannot be adequately dealt with when the number of essays is so artificially inflated!

I thought the idea was that the community rating sorts the quality. I would not like the contest if the essays were pre-filtered any more than the rules require.

You are being too hard on entries so far. I think there are some interesting points being made already. If you don't have time to read them all carefully then wait for the initial rating to sort them or filter by your own criteria.

Since you are so critical of our efforts I hope you will be entering soon to show us how it can be done better :-)

Yes, I'm preparing an essay, and I didn't mean to be super-critical at all.

I have witnessed what was happening during the last three contests (and I participated in two of them), and I'm sure that in each case, a large number (and the quality) of essays was the main obstacle towards a more *enjoyable, interesting, and productive* contest.

The structure of the human mind is such that beyond certain number, say around 40 essays, our mind is loosing its effectiveness in analyzing and comparing the content. Incidentally, for similar reasons, the sizes of classes in primary and secondary schools are generally kept under that number. But, alas, these considerations don't seem to be the guiding ones for the organizers. ;-) The declaration that the number of entries was, let's say, over 150 or 200 becomes overriding consideration. Unfortunately, it may seem from the 'outside', that what matters is the size of the finally selected set of essays (which is under 40) and not the number of original entries.

Agreed. But the issue there is the concept of community rating. Apart from the essay per se, the ensuing debate gives those particpating the opportunity to 'exlain themselves' both by a critque of others and a defence of the critique of others. That should then easily enable those effecting the judging to separate of the 'wheat from the chaff', and the issue of number of enries is thereby not such a problem.

But the rating system skews all this, because the debate which follows becomes a case of 'good point, oh by the way in my essay...', vote for me and I will vote for you, friends voting for friends, amateurs effecting judgements which they have no knowledge to substantiate, etc. Given the structure of the forum, ie its visibility when you enter it, then the 'celebrity' syndrome comes into play, ie he/she is a celebrity because he/she is a celebrity. An essay attracts more noise because it has noise. It is also inherently flawed to have participants rating each other, literally. As I said above, the rating is in the critique/defence thereof amongst the participants, not giving it marks out of 10.

"Apart from the essay per se, the ensuing debate gives those particpating the opportunity to 'exlain themselves' both by a critque of others and a defence of the critique of others. That should then easily enable those effecting the judging to separate of the 'wheat from the chaff', and the issue of number of enries is thereby not such a problem."

Forgive me, but you are quite naive: I'm sure that scientists are sufficiently busy not even to read those essays (never mind discussions) that do not "smell right".

In which case the question arises as to why have a competition in the first place??

One has to presume that, whilst it will never be perfect, the system of judging has some substantive degree of innate validity. My point being that the ensuing exchanges amongst the participants, without the impingement of rating, would provide supplementary evidence to the essay. Frankly, anybody with a competence could soon establish on the basis of the short essay and ensuing argument posted, whether there was something of substance and potential validity being proposed, that then warranted more detailed consideration. And in sponsoring a competition there comes a responsibility to invoke a valid judgement process.

My other point links into this. In order to be involved effectively on this site, I have found it necessary to maintain a manual record of topics, threads and posts. For example, apart from this thread, the only other active thread on this topic now is Lev 7/4 15.11, where the last post was 137. Otherwise, I am effectively 'blind' and would really just go where the 'noise' is. That is, I would have to try and remember which threads I was recently involved in, check whether there has been any change on that, or on others I might subsequently have an interest in, or rely on the recent posts list which is limited, especially in the context of many essays. So like a light to moths, noise just generates more noise. Or another way of putting it is that the initial 'judging' descends into something of a beauty parade, where validity is not exactly the prime factor.

I know that we are in a big moral mess (which actually caused the big economic mess), but I can't help 'dreaming' that at least some *scientific* organizations may offer moral and ethical enclaves. Alas, so far these have been just dreams. ;-(

Enclaves have agendas. If they didn't they wouldn't be very useful for what you(all of us) want, which is leverage for our ideas. Essentially what FQXi provides is an ecosystem, a fairly level playing field, for everyone to compete. What you would like is to have the lines drawn a little tighter to give you more room. That is natural, but whomever is making the decisions is quite radical in how open they leave this contest. Yes, it is tilted in favor of the establishment, but it remains an open market. If they were to start drawing lines, what criteria would you have? Academic credentials? That would be the most conventional, yet would it really be in the spirit of scientific inquiry?

This contest does seem to be coming up a bit light, this time around. So far, 31 entries. Last contest, by about the 7 week mark, there were 74 entries.

I think the main reason being the question is simply not as broad. Also that the rules made clear that winners would be significantly skewed to FQXI members had to be a little discouraging to outsiders.

Admittedly I did not invest nearly as much time writing my entry, as I spent trying to figure out what to write, so both issues affected my participation.

I do notice I've quickly garnered several negative scores, but far more limited response, so it seems most look upon this as a contest, rather than an opportunity to exchange ideas. That's understandable, but given the stated preferences in the rules, futile.

Possibly if FQXI wants to maintain interest in outside participation, by those interested in ideas and not just winning contests, they should make scoring contingent on commenting. This would mean other participants have to make a comment under their own name in order to score an entry. If people have opinions, they should at least express them. This current method seems promote spineless spamming.

I'm not disparaging the topic. It would be difficult to ask a broader question than the last; What of our basic assumptions are wrong? There will undoubtfully be many entries closer to the deadline and it will likely be around the number of entries in the contests prior to the last.

Mostly my peeve was getting a few bottom scores from people without the grace to comment. It falls in the category of spam. While it is convenient for FQXI to have this free grading system, some accountability would go a long way to maintaining a healthy debate atmosphere.

I have to say in previous contests, I've tended to mostly score contestants I've conversed with and then mostly middling to high scores, since I've only engaged in others entries where I did have some grounds for agreement. So I can see where, on the surface, this wouldn't serve the purpose of weeding out bad entries and generally paring down the field to a more manageable level, since most people are not likely to engage in conversations they see no interest in, yet the result will be a lack of scores for those entries that don't attract attention and that would be a form of grading in itself.

As it is, one of the main issues has been the degree of tactical scoring in previous contests and this might serve to reduce that.

As you might know I have been talking about these issues for several years now, mainly because I have been on the receiving end. But alas, the organizers do not seem to attach to the organizational side---and probably to the contest themselves---sufficient importance to make it a much more *enjoyable* experience for us, the participants. It is quite possible that this attitude may have already had a negative effect on all possible participants, including FQXi members, and hence the present attempt to woo these members by offering them "free entrance".

I suspect they were only giving formal recognition to what was occurring; That FQXI members were getting preferential treatment anyway. Which is completely natural. Given it amounted to a form of grant making process and the members only had to interact as they wished, I doubt it was to encourage the members, but more likely to discourage outsiders and thus reduce the number of entries to compete with and be sorted through. To the extent any members might have felt discouraged, it would only be due to scoring poorly against amateurs. Suffice to say, there are no other forums out there that do allow such head to head competition, so if they want to tilt it a little, I can accept that.

Of course, if you can only score what you comment on, the members might actually read a few more than they otherwise might.

I am new to this forum but I have enjoyed the flow and exchange of information. I note the criticisms about how essay entries are judged and this can only make things better. I had looked forward to submitting and an entry and I almost cancelled this when the topic came out!

But in retrospect, it is a topic that will take us near the 'secret of the Old One' as Einstein wished. I have made my entry.

I would suggest a step-wise judging process. First 40, then say a month later, remaining 20, then last 5, then winner. At each step, members and public must be negative in their criticism while the finalist in the 'witness box' answers and rebuts their criticism (I know the FQXi advocate courtesy and positive commentary). The aim is that the 'dialectic and reductio ad absurdum arguments that will arise from discussing the Winning Essays must lead to something of a concrete statement at the end of the contest, i.e. at the end there should be a well publicized foundational authoritative FQXi STATEMENT on 1. How the universe stores and processes its information, 2. Is IT actually from BIT or viceversa? 3. The following underlying assumptions are probably wrong.

Grievance time! This is not against FQXi, but against some individual(s) who give community scores to the essays. I notice some new essays were delivered up yesterday 6/10/13. Almost instantly they were all awarded a score of one. I have yet to look at any of these new essays; I might get to that this evening. However, I have a difficult time thinking that all of these essays are of such poor quality, and a #1 should really mean either utterly wrong, false or of poor reasoning, that the authors should be treated this way. This has happened as well with previous essays delivered up. I would like who ever is doing this to cease. Maybe the moderators should check the voting records to see if there is anyone who has given ones to all or most essays and to have these scores removed.

I had noticed this, it is just that now the scoring of ones was so blatant and obvious that I was annoyed. It was a blanket napalming of papers with a score of one with probably no regard or real reading of these papers.

Yes, this time, I do check my score quite often, with the above goal of documenting the scoring mess.

Of course, you are quite right about a very artificial lowering of scores. And in this contest, the open entry policy came to a *natural* fruition with the game of artificial score reduction becoming most popular.

But to whom are we appealing, if *actually* nobody has been listening? (Though we might get again some sort of pacifying reply.)

Obviously, the scoring system was designed for the sole purpose of reducing the number of candidates (to facilitate the selection process for the judges), without concern about the internal contest atmosphere. This is a VERY BIG mistake!!

I will be submitting my essay soon. But what I want to know is what kind of people who are categorized as "community". Are they all physicists or philosophers or general scientists or what? I am curious that is all, my guess is they are a mixture that is what the scoring reflects,not very perfect to say the least, in my opinion. From past essays I noticed that the judges did not take the community scores into account, or am I wrong.

First check the FAQ's for the contest. Here is my take of the contest, and please anyone (Brendan) if I got it wrong, please correct.

1. The community consists of all contest entrants and all FQXi members. I believe there are about 100 to 200 members. You can find out who they are by googling FQXi.org members.

2. The members are all philosophers and physicists most associated with a university. It is an interesting mix from all over the world. Almost all members have bios and info online. See who you are sympathetic with and use them as your three desired judges.

3. All FQXI members can vote, their votes count more than those of entrants. Most members are not in the contest and can vote after the contest closes. There may or may not be a little home cooking going on (FQXi members vote for FQXi entrants) but it is a natural effect. There are a lot of difficult to read entries, and it is a lot easier to read stuff written by your colleges. I have the notion that we do not get to see the final community scores, but only the scores at the end of the contest. There is a period of time after the contest ends where only FQXi members can vote.

4. This contest has a new interesting rule. If a member enters it is a requirement that they comment on 5 essays written by non members.

Thanks for the info, that was really helpful. My essay involves a system with a lot of simulations that I have done two years back. Trying to remember a lot of stuff for the final write up has been a nightmare, I guess that is why I was lazy to find out about the members on my own.

But do you really think these guys really care about what we think, I will be surprised if they do. I did have a brief communication with Dr Tegmark who was kind to reply. Also, since members cannot vote that explains some of the erratic votes so far. Thanks again.

I checked the essays this afternoon and the new ones posted today all have score point = 1. The one-point troll has struck again! This person could not have read all these essays! I have no idea whether these new essays are good or bad, I have not looked at them yet. Yet it is clear there is somebody, or several people, who wants to give ones to suppress the average scores.

I am not the troll, and you might agree with me on that scoring without previous discussion is unfair. I guess, the troll rather criticized that virtually all essays did not fit into his own view.

What about my own essay, I would appreciate a huge number of lowest scores on condition the scorer did previously take issue and revealed at least one weak point in my argumentation. I do not appreciate lazy and coward rejection of my arguments just because they are at variance with a particular opinion or the common belief that for instance Einstein's or Wheeler's theories are definitely not wrong.

On the other hand, I feel myself in position to judge for instance the fact that an author used ten times in his abstract the expression "onto..." as an indication of weakness. I would not score Wheeler ten but also not one because I consider him honest.

Maybe those 1's should be dropped, with appropriate explanation. Maybe future contests should include a justification for why it got the score it got. A human answer is less generic, more unique, then just a number.

I suddenly realized that it would have somewhat improved the scoring situation if the contest rules contained a short list of recommendations for how and when to assign low scores (1 - 3 or 1 - 4). For example, a score of "1" in the cases satisfying *all or most* of these (tentative) conditions:

1. The essay does not really address the proposed topic

2. The essay is organized extremely poorly

3. The essay is written in a very poor English

4. The essay is very difficult to read

5. The essay does not contain any original ideas

6. The essay shows a lack of basic scientific knowledge

Of course, the essays satisfying all these conditions should not be admitted to the contest. And quite possibly they are not admitted, so that we should not have the scores of "1" at all!

The feature of the voting that I find to be of most concern is that there is a big disadvantage of having a larger number of ratings from the community. For example, it would be better to enter the final with 10 ratings and an average of 4 than 40 ratings and an average of 5. This is because the expert panel are likely to vote good essays higher but the number of ratings from the community is used as a weighting so the low community vote counts against those with more ratings. For example, if both these essays get 6 ratings from the panel (weighted x 3) with an average of 7, then the one with the community rating of 4 will win. He will have an overall average of 5.9 compared to an average of 5.6 for the one with the community rating of 5.

This could be fixed by calculating the community rating and panel rating and taking the straight average of those two numbers.

One effect of this is that it is better to enter the competition at the last minute rather than right at the beginning. If you are near the top from the start you get more ratings and this holds your score down compared to those who enter late when the panel votes. I still prefer to enter early because I want to be involved in the discussion for as long as possible but it is a shame that this gives a big disadvantage.

By the way I don't think we have any FQXi member entries yet. The number of entries usually doubles in the last week though.

I had the alias name of qsa before, and I posted many questions to you. But what I am wondering now is how are the winning essays picked. Do the judges panel make the decision or the voting by the "community" or is it a mixture of some sort.

Do you really think the FQXI community members care for the essays and vote in any substantial way. They are all who's who and I doubt they have the time for us. Thanks.

It's good to see an active exchange of ideas, and a lot of familiar names in the roster of authors contributing essays this year. I got my submission in on the last day, this time, but not at the last minute. I don't expect to see it today, therefore, but I don't imagine it will be the last one to appear either.

I look forward to again being a part of the FQXi Physics essay contests, and sharing this space with all of you. Good luck to all. And a special thank you for the encouragement of friends.

Really, I do not like this system where low evaluations are given without arguments, even without reading of an essay. The first evaluation I got in less than an hour after the essay was published.

I think that it is necessary a few days that a lot of argumenst are exchanged, that evaluation is allowed. Besides, the purpose of this context is exchange of arguments, and this fast evaluations do not serve to this purpose.

This problem has come up many times. I think this has nothing to do with evaluation, it is done on purpose for good reason, so that no artificial voting raises the score and offsets older essays with high ranking with many votes. That is my take anyway.

o.k.! I got a subject for my essay. Instead of tackling Wheeler’s gedanken, I go back to the principal assumption. (I know, I am late since this was the last contest subject). The fact is that the gedanken is based on the wave-particle duality from the double slit experiment. Well, guess what.

At the time, quantum mechanics was full of surprises and we were so ready for the next one. So, the wave-particle duality was quickly accepted as Weird rather than Wrong. Worst, is was translated into a direct ontological equivalence. I mean, appearance of wave is a wave and appearance of a particle is a particle. We got neither. A soliton is both, in a way. Solitons marching in phase will act as waves but at the detector they surrender a specific quantum of energy, Solitons are quantum of EM waves.

The conclusion is that light wave interference is wrong. Only the appearance of...It should have been obvious by the moment we got single particle or photons interfering with themselves... So what does produce the pattern observed in the double slit experiment? Read my essay...if it ever comes out.

If the scores given, but not particular essays voted on, was made public for each voting participant there would be a social incentive to give more reasonable and even generous scores and not to give out lots of extremely low scores. I think that would be an unpopular change though, which might backfire by discouraging voting at all.

A check list for each number on the scale 1 to 10 would be helpful as it would make the voting a little bit more objective. Like school student achievement targets, which either are or are not achieved. Maybe that could be considered for future contests.

With 5 looking like the new 10 there seems a built in unfairness at this stage of the contest as an essay might have to be considered exceptionally to merit a vote much higher than the front runners current scores, though they will have already had higher scores than their average given. I guess that is just another advantage to entering early.

In the end it is all in the hands of the judges. they can vote down a top scorer who is in the range of 5 by a score of 1 and make a score of 2 a winner by giving it a mere score of 4. But anyway, IMHO I don't see a strong correlation between a good idea and the community score, especially that not everybody scores the same essay.

Lev, the house is as pseudo-scientific as we active participants would allow it ;-))

John, from reading this thread I gathered that it began around the first week-middle of may (-?), which, makes it possible to narrow down the list of 'suspects' lol

Come think of it, there is something in making each entry start from the very bottom and percolate its way up entirely on its merits. ..even though this certainly makes a very disheartening welcome, sort of like the engraving on Dante's doors of Hell: "Leave all your hope behind".

I want to raise one important but controversial issue concerning the main difficulties with the organization of various "contests" on the hot and controversial topics in physics, including the FQXi contests.

I believe that---in view of the presently (largely unrecognized) pre-transitional period in science---the main difficulty with such contests is the selection of *the right panel of judges*. Put simply, science have *never* experienced the transitions of such magnitude, and for that reason the vast majority of scientists do not even admit such possibility.

1. Most professional physicists, for obvious reasons, are too attached to the conventional formal models and cannot accept the reality of such pre-transitional period.

2. Most non-professional participants, even if some of them may feel it in their guts, are not 'trained' to understand that *the only way* to really push things along requires a proposal of a radically new *formal* language that would suggest *what* has been missing so far.

So the main obstacle *in the scientific community* is the missing realization of the *unprecedented depth* of the present scientific crisis. So we are faced with the 'chicken & egg' situation: the depth of the crisis cannot be evaluated until the new formal language, or formalism, emerges.

you're so right, but surely you understand the problem in suggesting that people stop using their familiar language and learn a new, better one. I know you're fluent in at least 2 human languages (and speak countless computer ones :), but I am sure you remember the struggles you went through when learning your second human language. The reality is that people are not going to invest...

you're so right, but surely you understand the problem in suggesting that people stop using their familiar language and learn a new, better one. I know you're fluent in at least 2 human languages (and speak countless computer ones :), but I am sure you remember the struggles you went through when learning your second human language. The reality is that people are not going to invest time and effort in learning a new scientific language unless the practical advantage of using it is clearly demonstrated. In other words, in order to be even considered, such a language needs to be already developed --at least partially-- and used to obtain otherwise unobtainable results.

Regarding the contest, you have to consider the logistics of organizing it. This was already discussed in the aftermath of the last year contest, which had ~240(!) entries. What panel of judges could possibly read and evaluate them all fairly? And how much this would cost to the organizers -- it's a hard work.

I understand that you propose to limit the participation to the highly educated professionals. Would that imply checking out their credentials? How? And yes, Brendan can identify the people who give off the bat 1's to all new entries, and disqualify them from the competition, but surely you understand what a can of worms this opens up -- the line of impartiality and fairness will be forever broken, creating a precedence for admins to interfere with ratings in the future, which may make the atmosphere even more unhealthy than it is now.

"I understand that you propose to limit the participation to the highly educated professionals."

No, not at all!

I am sure that among the 'non-professionals' there are some (and I've seen quite a few) interesting entries that should be admitted.

Marina, as to your rating proposal, you appear to be too generous to the professionals. ;-)

The idea of giving a very short reason for the score is a good one.

In general, as I have already mentioned about two years ago, the present, neglected, format of the contests has encouraged extensive *non-scientific* lobbying instead of the more productive scientific discussions.

Personally, I see absolutely no difficulties with developing a much more productive format for the contests, but I don't want to spend time discussing it now since I have not seen much interest in it by the organizers. ;-)

One can navigate to the list of essays from the front page via the Forum tab at the top, but all other links to the essays on the site now dead-end. This is of course disappointing. And authors newly posted like myself would wish to begin rating essays, once they are read, but hopefully they will sort things out.

I would like to thank those fellow essay submitters who took the time to read my essay and had the nerve to rate it. To be judged by one’s peers is one thing; to be judged and positively rated by one’s intellectual superiors is quite another matter.

I was under the impression that voting for essays would continue until the end of July. The conetst rules page seems to be gone. The contest scoring appears to be closed now. Is this permanent or a temporary closing due to a technical issue?

If they detected evidence of tampering with the rating system, the current state of having everyone locked out of the rating system could be a fail-safe, until they figure out how to selectively lock out the culprits, and prevent further tampering. I guess it's better happening right now, rather than during the final week of voting. But as Lawrence said, the rules had stated that voting will be open through month's end. I imagine the page with the rules is still there, if it was bookmarked beforehand, but all the links even to the list of essays are dead-ends, except the one in the Forum page.

LOL who else thought that this was because of something they have said? I saw it Fri evening, but no-one else complained and there was no explanation from Brendan. I thought that my IP was singled out as a potential troublemaker lol. I cleaned up all my posts in this thread, thinking that they were the cause (I could think of nothing else). We will see an explanation tomorrow when Brendan returns to work after the weekend.

I never even got the chance to say anything so edgy as to warrant a response, but I know what you mean. I too thought I'd done something wrong, that had locked me out of the system, but assumed it was a technical issue - rather than a personal one - early on. I do hope they get things running again soon, however.

And of course, there is the question of the lost time - especially for those who had hoped to rate a significant number of essays this weekend.

No need to feel guilty Jonathan and Marina! If check the essays listed by the date they were posted you will see there were 17 of them rated 1, a couple had a rating of 2 and a few others where not rated. The older ones had reasonable ratings. That is clear evidence that some misguided soul tried to pull down the newcomers' ratings. What I do not understand is that something like this occurred towards the end of last year's contest - some response other than "closing" the contest should have been planned for this sort of thing.

fqXi should fully refund our ITS and BITS and give everyone (except the wrongdoers) free popcorn!

Vladimir

post approved

Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 8, 2013 @ 14:57 GMT

No need to feel guilty Jonathan and Marina! If you check the essays listed by the date they were posted you will see there were 17 of them rated 1, a couple had a rating of 2 (by 2 people) and a few others where not rated. The older ones had reasonable ratings. That is clear evidence that some misguided soul tried to pull down the newcomers' ratings. What I do not understand is that something like this occurred towards the end of last year's contest - some response other than "closing" the contest should have been planned for this sort of thing.

fqXi should fully refund our ITS and BITS and give everyone (except the wrongdoers) free popcorn!

From my experience with voting/polling programs, in order for the function to exist you sometimes need to post a rating/vote in order for that function to be visible on the html page. For example, I noticed when my essay was first posted 'all' the other entries posted on that date also had the "same" low rating initially.

Oh you think the contest is closed now? I though it was just a glitch, possibly caused by someone's tampering with the sys. It seems strange that no official notice has been given thus far, and it is already past 1 PM on the East Coast.

It would be nice if the big poobahs would let us know what has happened or is happening.

The low voting score of one was universally applied since the start of this contest. Every essay that appeared initially got a score of one. I suspect there were others who gave all papers one as well. This sort of resets the meaning of the highest score.

I'd sort of hate to think the whole thing is cancelled or something. I also am concerned that what happened last year will happen again, where I check this site some morning in the near future to find my essay down near the middle of the pack. I did not notice any radical change in the score positions of papers towards the close. That did happen towards the end of last year's contest.

I will stick my neck out and predict that, right now, to adequately approach "information" via physical theories is quite futile. Why?

1. Today, the most appropriate, or natural, way to approach "information" is via biological information processing capabilities.

2. At the same time, we all should remember that:

"The fathers of the Scientific Revolution intentionally excluded mind from the scientific agenda: they wanted to (and did) build science based on the much more familiar, spatial, considerations, while the mind, they agreed, is of non-spatial nature."

So, despite the artificial, or inappropriate, use of the term "information" in physics, I really don't see how, today, we can approach "information" based on the present mathematics and physics that were built based on the spatial consideration, while "information" is of non-spatial nature.

Lev Goldfarb wrote: "I really don't see how, today, we can approach "information" based on the present mathematics and physics that were built based on the spatial consideration, while "information" is of non-spatial nature."

Correct, but who cares? Physics is dead anyway:

Mike Alder: "It is easy to see the consequences of the takeover by the bureaucrats. Bureaucrats favour uniformity, it simplifies their lives. They want rules to follow. They prefer the dead to the living. They have taken over religions, the universities and now they are taking over Science. And they are killing it in the process. The forms and rituals remain, but the spirit is dead. The cold frozen corpse is so much more appealing to the bureaucratic mind-set than the living spirit of the quest for insight. Bureaucracies put a premium on the old being in charge, which puts a stop to innovation. Something perhaps will remain, but it will no longer attract the best minds. This, essentially, is the Smolin position. He gives details and examples of the death of Physics, although he, being American, is optimistic that it can be re,versed. I am not. (...) Developing ideas and applying them is done by a certain kind of temperament in a certain kind of setting, one where there is a good deal of personal freedom and a willingness to take risks. No doubt we still have the people. But the setting is gone and will not come back. Science is a product of the renaissance and an entrepreneurial spirit. It will not survive the triumph of bureacracy. Despite having the infrastructure, China never developed Science. And soon the West won't have it either."

Although we do have to face the present enormous gap between the 'old' scientific patterns and the present unprecedented needs of our "information" society--and this is our greatest tragedy--we still have to be constructive and not just critical and dismissive (we are talking about the greatest achievements of the human mind). Otherwise, our criticisms might be safely dismissed, especially given the present very busy life styles.

Personally, I would not have come to these radical conclusions without some proposal in hand that clarifies the situation.

Lev Goldfarb wrote: "...we still have to be constructive and not just critical and dismissive. Otherwise, our criticisms might be safely dismissed, especially given the present very busy life styles. Personally, I would not have come to these radical conclusions without some proposal in hand that clarifies the situation."

OK let us try to clarify the situation. I believe that Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false and the speed of light does depend on the speed of the light source, as predicted by Newton's emission theory of light (c'=c+v). FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, let us assume that I am right. How do we proceed? Should the false postulate be immediately replaced by its true antithesis, even if obviously no new theory will replace Einstein's relativity (rather, we will have to return to 18th century physics)? Or, just because we have no new theory in hand we should preserve the old one, with the false postulate being its linchpin?

First, we don't have yet serious evidence that the postulate is wrong: if we had any you wouldn't need to argue your case here. I hope that you do realize that it is not easy to catch physicists in such basic matters.

Second, my mind cannot conceive of a relatively easy way of 'catching' physicists on their own grounds: you have to have some respect for them.

The only way we can discover a new and radically different "reality"--and it must be radically new--is via the "informational" path properly understood. (By the way, as Heisenberg discusses in one of his papers, you can't substantially modify the basic theories without destroying their integrity.)

But what you describe is unfortunately all too real. In Spain; the Science ministry was closed down, a year or two ago, and the person put in charge of the Research community there was a bureaucrat, the Minister of the Economy. Of course; his first act was to close down 'under-performing' facilities and research projects entirely. Some experimenters were compelled to return their funds without ever having the chance to unpack their new equipment or conduct an experiment, because they hadn't produced results yet.

" ... just because we have no new theory in hand we should preserve the old one, with the false postulate being its linchpin?"

Yes, we should. Consider how long Euclidean geometry lasted with its "false" fifth postulate. Einstein's general theory wouldn't be possible unless the postulate were replaced with one from non-Euclidean geometry.

Postulates (axioms) aren't false in a self-consistent system. The conclusions one can reach from them are simply limited to that domain -- just as Newtonian physics is limited, and which Einstein's relativity extends.

A scientific theory -- like a mathematical system -- is domain dependent.

I agree with your comments citing Mike Adler, about the bureaucrats taking over, Pentcho. But who is to tell them the obvious question "Do you want to have your way, or would you rather get what you want?" Unfortunately; bureaucrats want to have their way, and to blame someone else if it doesn't result in their getting what they want. But trying to extend the 'prediction and control' paradigm to Research has the power to shut the whole thing down - by halting progress entirely.

The example above, of Spain's Minister of the Economy taking over control of the Research community after closing the Science ministry, is only the tip of the iceberg. Zeilinger was emphatic about giving researchers the freedom to explore, as an essential for progress, when I heard him lecture in Paris at FFP11. But Doug Osheroff, at FFP10 in Perth Australia, spelled out in great detail, how one must deliberately look beyond the familiar territory in order to make important discoveries.

So to top researchers at the frontiers, the need for the freedom to playfully explore is obvious. But to a bureaucrat; anything that resembles play should be stamped out, because it must be a waste of time. In other words; they wish we were machines - who can follow instructions on what to discover next. And even if we were, research does not work that way. My crusade at this point is to help make it OK to be human again, and to elevate in our perceptions the value and intelligence of play.

I wrote: " ... just because we have no new theory in hand we should preserve the old one, with the false postulate being its linchpin?"

Tom Ray replied: "Yes, we should. Consider how long Euclidean geometry lasted with its "false" fifth postulate. Einstein's general theory wouldn't be possible unless the postulate were replaced with one from non-Euclidean geometry. Postulates (axioms) aren't false in a self-consistent system. The conclusions one can reach from them are simply limited to that domain -- just as Newtonian physics is limited, and which Einstein's relativity extends."

Tom,

I disagree with you of course but, on the other hand, I appreciate your courage to expose the crux of the problem. Do you claim that the statement:

"The speed of light, as measured by the observer, is independent of the speed of the emitter"

cannot be characterized as "true" or "false" if (the self-consistency of) special relativity is not taken into account?

'The speed of light, as measured by the observer, is independent of the speed of the emitter'

cannot be characterized as 'true' or 'false' if (the self-consistency of) special relativity is not taken into account?"

Pentcho, independent of what you (or I or anyone) may believe, *no* rational statement is true or false without the context of logical self consistency.

Science is not a belief system -- we can only objectively measure correspondence between abstract theory and physical result. That Einstein extended Newtonian physics into a domain where it does not apply does not mean that Newtonian physics isn't true, no more than non-Euclidean geometry is untrue in the domain to which it applies. As scandalized as your common sense may be over Einstein's result, special and general relativity meets the test of rational science.

'The speed of light, as measured by the observer, is independent of the speed of the emitter'

cannot be characterized as 'true' or 'false' if (the self-consistency of) special relativity is not taken into account?"

Tom replied: "Pentcho, independent of what you (or I or anyone) may believe, *no* rational statement is true or false without the context of logical self consistency."

Tom, an example: Initially, both the emitter and the observer are stationary and the observer receives light with frequency f, speed c and wavelength L. Then the emitter starts moving towards the observer with speed v and the frequency the observer measures shifts from f=c/L to f'=(c+v)/L. This allows us to claim that the statement:

'The frequency, as measured by the observer, is independent of the speed of the emitter'

is FALSE, and we don't need any "context of logical self consistency". Similarly, we can characterize the statement:

'The speed of light, as measured by the observer, is independent of the speed of the emitter'

as true or false, and again we don't need any "context of logical self consistency".

May I show how you both may be part right? There's more than one case. This is using the Doppler 'wavelength change' lambda formula as required in both optics and astronomy (redshift) to avoid nonsense.

Before considering space we consider a dielectric background medium with refractive index n. We'll consider the medium a gas at n~1, or plasma at n=1 so 'propagation'...

May I show how you both may be part right? There's more than one case. This is using the Doppler 'wavelength change' lambda formula as required in both optics and astronomy (redshift) to avoid nonsense.

Before considering space we consider a dielectric background medium with refractive index n. We'll consider the medium a gas at n~1, or plasma at n=1 so 'propagation' speeds are c (as the SR postulate).

1) If the emitter is a rest in the medium frame the propagation speed approaching the observer is c/n with respect to (wrt) the emitter, then c in the new detector lens frame when encountered as the wavelength Doppler shifts, so when processed against time is always found at c/n.

2) If it is the emitter in motion through the medium, then as we know, the propagation speed immediately reverts to c in the medium frame, undergoing the wavelength change at the speed change. The medium frame is the same as the detector so he still finds speed c/n.

Now we remember Einstein's clear 1952 statement that SR is "entirely contained within the postulates", so assume for the moment the interpretation is at large but the postulates not; When we now go into space, we find we can consider it as a diffuse medium because a fermion particle background frame is local NOT 'absolute', so is allowed by Einstein. Exactly the same situation then applies; All emission is immediately at local c, but all propagation is at local c, so all detection is at local c (if a detector isn't made of matter it isn't there!)

The LT gamma function is literally the limit gamma on the 'frame boundary' wavelength reduction, known as the 'Optical Breakdown' (OB) limit or 'mode'. As gamma is approached OB mode is reached and EM waves can't propagate faster.

The error then would be purely in our oversimplified assumptions, adherence to doctrine, and forgetting that 'frequency' is just a time based number.

This model is unfamiliar at first but has proved entirely impervious to (proper scientific) falsification (take that as a challenge!) As Bill McHarris puts it so well in his essay; ."...nature is far more intricate and beautiful than we could imagine, using our simple(-minded) models."

It looks like a normal inverse Bayesian probability amplitude distribution job (iPAD). Interesting, as I believe that's normally considered in the same way as a Gaussian distribution, as a sign of 'normality'. Were you hinting it may be otherwise? It's also consistent with the Godel n-value 'fuzzy logic' distribution in my essay, the LT gamma curve, and a standard 'power curve distribution, which I suggest can all be heuristically linked. Fascinating stuff. I predict the previous years would have a very similar profile. Have you looked?

In fact, we're currently moving the site over to a new server, and there may be a temporary hole in spacetime while we do that. I believe the data is just passing behind the black hole but not fallen into it.